Bloodlines
by mermaidstear
Summary: Nora was captured by the Augustine Society in 1949. She bonds with Enzo and Damon, who live in the cells opposite her. After Damon escapes, leaving Enzo and Nora behind, they work to get out again. When it appears that the Augustines are dissolving, Nora makes a break for it, believing Enzo and the Society are gone. When both survive to present day, she's in for a shock. Enzo/OC
1. Chapter 1

**Hey! This idea started bugging me a couple of days ago until I finally gave in to writing it. I hope you like it. Please tell me what you think! I only own Nora.**

They say that if you're ever in what seems to be a hopeless situation, that's exactly what you're not supposed to do; lose hope. Find a point to focus on and keep it in view. Sometimes this point can be a variety of things but to most, it is a person. And lately, I've not even had that much.

It's been a week, maybe two, since I was brought in by Dr. Whitmore. The year is 1949, coincidentally my 300th year as a vampire. I was caught in Jamestown after an historical society meeting (which I am completely invaluable to as I was born, raised, and turned in the Jamestown colony). I'd made a point to look nice, wearing an evening dress and pulling up my dark blonde hair. The dress is now ruined. My hair is now tangled, falling between my shoulder blades.

Over the last few days, I've pondered what I could have done differently that night. Not feed in the alley? Not drink so much champagne that I let my guard down? Wear more sensible shoes?

I've got the unfortunate feeling that none of that would have made a difference.

I had been hunted. These people had sought me out, they knew what I was and where I was going to be, and judging by the amount of vervain they pumped into my neck, they knew I was old.

The first day here, I woke up before the Augustines wanted me to. As I was being carried into a scientific lab, I opened my darkening eyes and flashed my fangs. I wrapped my fingers around the throat of one of the doctors and threw him across the room. Then I broke another's wrist when he tried to vervain me. My success didn't last long because Dr. Whitmore, the head of this ridiculous organization, stuck a syringe into my arm. The vervain was so strong that I passed out again.

When I woke up, I was strapped to a table, unable to move. I jerked at the straps. If I had been at full strength, I would've shredded them.

"There's no point, 20574." A man in a white lab coat turned to face me. I could see tools laid out on a table behind him, all of them silver and all of them some form of weapon.

"What?" I remember groaning.

"You can struggle all you wish but you're not getting out of here. We've learned our lesson." I assume they have. I've spent the time since then too weak to move on my own. Doctors come to my cell, pick me up, move me around, take me back, and throw me on the ground. My first night here I just stayed prostrate on the floor, unable to do anything but lay there.

"What is this place?" I pulled at the straps again. I couldn't see them all but I felt them around my legs, wrists, hips, and across my shoulders. I knew then as I know now that getting out of this situation won't be easy. In fact, if they keep drugging me, I'll likely never get a leg up on them.

"You're part of an experiment for the Augustine Society, 20574." I think I rumpled my brow in confusion.

"What sort of experiment?"

"Well, you see, I'm a doctor and the research I'm planning on conducting on you is going to help the human race." I've met a lot of crazy people in my long life on this earth but so far, Dr. Whitmore is in the running for number one. "You vampires heal so fast that it's hard to believe anything ever happened to you. I plan on figuring out how that works."

He made the mistake of catching my eye and I took the chance to compel him. "As fascinating as all that sounds, you've made a mistake. I'm not the one you want so you're going to let me go." In response, Dr. Whitmore only laughed.

"That's a good one," he replied, "but I'm wearing vervain, as are all of the humans who work here. But as I was saying, your blood regenerates, not only itself but it heals others."

"And you just want to take my blood to heal humans?"

"Oh no. I want to know exactly how it works." He had said it so sinisterly that I knew what he was going to do to me long before he did it.

The first day wasn't that bad, all things considered. My navy evening dress had the middle torn practically in half and there was a slit to the top of my thigh that hadn't been there originally so my humiliation trumped my pain. But the pain was still awful. I can barely recall what happened in my first few hours in the lab but I know I screamed the entire time. Let me put it this way, they made sure to drug me again because Dr. Whitmore thought I might have bled out the majority of the vervain he'd administered earlier.

I was so groggy after that that I couldn't walk on my own. I was brought into the basement with my arms draped around two men and my feet dragging against the ground. Then I was cast onto the floor of a cell and locked inside. After that, I must have passed out again or otherwise, I just stared at the ceiling until I fell asleep.

My second day, I was coherent enough to discover that my cell faced another. I think there are four down here, each pair facing the other. I turned onto my side, looked into the cell across from mine, and saw a man. He was looking back at me, probably had been all night. I barely had the chance to recognize that there was someone else in here with me before Dr. Whitmore came and retrieved him. "No, no, no," I muttered. Minutes later, I heard yelling and I knew that whatever was happening to my cellmate was worse than what had happened to me.

I spent the next few hours contemplating ways to get out of this place and came up completely short. I pulled at the bars, I tried to break the lock on the door, I did everything I could think of but I was far too weak. Finally I just sat down and covered my face with my hands.

I've done a lot of bad things in my life. I've killed innocent people. I've threatened them, stolen from them. But do I deserve this? Am I so irredeemable that I should be locked up and tortured? In the time that I've been here, I can't say I agree with that.

Once I heard the screaming stop, it wasn't long before Dr. Whitmore brought the man back down. I eagerly looked through the bars, my hands wrapped around them, and watched him be locked in.

"You're up, 20574." Dr. Whitmore had turned toward me and I only shook my head.

"Are you saying I wasn't enough for you?" the vampire in the cell said. He's got an accent. "I'm ready to go again." I looked at the guy like he was insane before realizing he was trying to help me.

"Oh, you'll get your turn again tomorrow, 12144."

"Why do you call us numbers?" I asked. "Is it to make you feel better about cutting into us or are you just bad with names?" I saw a smirk stretch across the face of my cellmate.

"Tread lightly, 20574." I recall staring at Dr. Whitmore standing in front of my cell, ready to snap his neck. "If you learn to behave, I won't have to keep doing this." It was lightning fast. He grabbed my hand through the bars and injected a syringe of vervain. I clenched my teeth together in pain and I immediately weakened, though not enough to knock me out.

He unlocked the door, manacled my wrists, and pulled me out of the cell. I wasn't much for a fight then and I'm definitely not now. I let him walk me into the lab without even a complaint. I hadn't been here twenty-four hours and I felt like I had already given up.

That day, Dr. Whitmore told me his name, split open my forearm, and broke my leg. That day, I also yelled until I was hoarse.

"Is there any correlation between age and healing factor?" he asked, running a scalpel along my lower stomach.

"I don't know. You tell me," I replied, my breath hitching.

"If you care to know, I am aware of your name, 20574. It's Nora Darby. And most estimates put you at close to 300 years old." Those estimates would be right.

"And how do you know all that?"

"Vampires seem to be naturally arrogant but those that go into history have to have a particularly potent form of it. They always give themselves away. Giving far too accurate corrections, saying something that no amount of physical evidence can back up, speaking as though they were there. All are mistakes you've made, 20574." I'm guilty of everything he listed off and I can't deny it, especially the arrogance. "Maybe while you're here, you can do some thinking about how to change your approach."

When I was put back in my cell that night, the guards that brought me back down threw me a ball of clothes and gave me a pair of boots. The guy in the cell across from me watched incredulously.

"What are you waiting for, 20574?" one of the guards asked. I hugged the bundle of clothes to my stomach. No way. There was no way I was going to change in front of them.

"Are you serious?" I responded. They only laughed. The dress I had on when I was brought in had been torn to tatters. If I didn't change in front of them soon, it wasn't going to matter. I was close to nude anyway. So I did it. I faced the wall, crumpled my expensive navy dress, and got dressed in cargo pants, a white shirt, and combat boots.

They were careful not to get close to me when they grabbed my dress. I quickly hid my right hand in a pocket. They might want to confiscate everything that I came in with and I could not give up my daylight ring. I worked hard for that thing. I spent a century in the dark before getting my ring and I am never going to experience that again. But they didn't ask for it, even though Dr. Whitmore has seen it every time he's seen me.

I spared a glance across the hallway and saw that the other vampire wasn't looking at me. I admired him for it. If the view of the Augustine Society is that all vampires are ruthless monsters, unworthy of pity, it is one that is wrong.

The guards left and one of them winked at me. I've decided that I'm going to kill him first.

"That _was_ a beautiful dress," my fellow captive said.

"Well, I paid a lot of money for it so it should have been," I responded. He moved to his bars, leaning up against them so that I saw him better. He's good looking and appears charming.

"I meant to give you the welcome speech yesterday but you passed out before I got the chance. You must've done something to really piss them off."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." I put my hands through the bars, linking my fingers together.

"It might be best for you to lay low. You'll get weaker anyway. There's no point in speeding up the process." I figured he would know.

"How long have you been in here?"

"When I was on tour in Europe, I slipped up. Dr. Whitmore was travelling to different camps and found out what I was. He drugged me and sent me back here."

"You've been here for _years_?" I was in disbelief. If he's been since World War II, there is no hope for us. Unfortunately, nothing has changed on that front.

"Regrettably. I'm Enzo."

"Nora."

In the days (or weeks) that I've been here, Enzo has been the only light spot. I like him and he was right. Not laying low when I first got here has cost me a lot of agency. For the first few days, I was given no blood and kept heavily vervained. But now they've got me where they want me; too weak to fight or even protest anything verbally. Judging by the fact that Enzo has been in here for at least four years, I doubt that I'm going to get out any time soon. I use the time I have where I'm not being tortured to contemplate killing everyone working in Augustine.

That serves as a point of hope, right?


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey y'all! Thanks so much for all the favorites and follows! I really appreciate it! Please let me know what you think! And as usual, I only own Nora.**

I was turned at the ripe age of 24, a spinster by 17th century terms. I was shot in the gut by my maker in the middle of a scuffle outside a tavern of all places. It was an excruciating death. Word in the armies and militias of the time was that a bullet to the stomach meant you were as good as dead. There was nothing doctors could do for you (except make it worse in most cases). It takes hours and it is painful. But it is nothing compared to what I have been experiencing in the Augustine Society.

At least after the hours of bleeding out were over, I woke up under the impression that it would never happen again. But here I go through things much worse than a gut shot then I slowly heal and they start it all over. I don't know what's worse; knowing it's coming or enduring it. Every night I'm forced to think about what could be next. Maybe tomorrow he'll want my kidney. The day after might be my eyes. What about my feet? He's not done anything to them yet so it's only a matter of time.

We follow a pretty formulaic schedule. In the morning, either Enzo or I are retrieved for the day (sometimes both of us go, which are the worst days). Whoever's got it off just mopes around or at least, that's what I do. I'm not sure what Enzo does with his free time. We're brought back later and given a little plastic cup of blood. And I do mean little. I mean tiny. I mean I've had shots of whiskey larger than this. After that, the day is over and Enzo and I basically just talk. I find that I really look forward to it and not just because it's a break from being opened up with different medical instruments.

It's been two months since I first got here and ironically enough, I think I've made a real friend.

Even though I've been around for centuries, I can't say that I've ever really bonded with someone other than the vampire who turned me (which was a shaky friendship to say the least). It's not for lack of trying. Well, maybe it is. Friendships with humans are only temporary and they can't last very long for obvious reasons and other vampires… The problem with other vampires is just that I've never found one I can genuinely say I like.

My maker called me cold, only concerned with my own self-interest. He told me the reason I had no one was because I didn't let others in. He said one day I would come to regret only looking out for myself. Unfortunately, I think there's something to that. If I had actual friends, people I trust, there's a possibility I wouldn't have ended up here.

I assume Dr. Whitmore has been taking lone vampires, ones that nobody will come looking for. That puts Enzo and I squarely on the same side. So at first, I clung to the idea that if either of us is getting out of here, we have to trust each other and that won't happen until we're friends. Now, after months of living in a dirty cell, I've pretty much given up hope of escaping but I haven't given up on becoming friends.

Enzo manages to remain charming and alluring despite the circumstances. He's funny, flirtatious, and utterly fascinating. Most nights I just lay on the ground and stare at him while we talk. I feel like if I'm not looking at him, I'm completely missing out on the best part of the conversation.

We steer clear of too much mention of our pasts. I know he's British and younger than I am. He knows I'm American (well, originally a colonist) and that I was caught outside of the historical society. In the beginning, we just talked about revenge but now we talk about anything. It's strange because I find myself relaxing and telling him things I wouldn't normally. If I don't watch it, I actually start enjoying myself.

Tonight, he starts off with, "You got any hobbies, Nora?" I turn to lay on my side, head propped up by my arm. "You know, dancing, painting, the like."

"I like music, singing," I respond without thinking. I see Enzo make a face. He's standing and looking over at me through his cell bars. He's got more energy than I do.

"You can sing? Let's hear it." Enzo always speaks as though he's clenching his teeth and I find that I really like it.

I shake my head. "Oh, I'm not good. It's more of a private pleasure."

"You just keep disappointing me, Nora." I smile. "When you first showed up, I thought this was going to be great. I finally get some company and entertainment but you just deny me at every turn."

"I didn't see 'entertainer' on the form I signed when I got here."

"Well, one day I'll get it out of you. We've got nothing but time." Honestly, I can't even believe that I told him I enjoy singing. It's just something I like to do in my spare time to make myself feel better. I'll probably never do it again. "At least tell me your favorite song."

"Bye Bye Blackbird is my favorite."

"I'm going to remember that. I bet I can trick you into singing it for me." I laugh.

"Keep dreaming. But what about you and your interests? Let me guess." I pretend to really think it over, letting my fingers rest on my chin. "You like fine wines and fast cars."

"And how do you figure that?" he asks in a tone that tells me I'm completely right.

"You've just got that look."

"What look?"

"That sort of handsome, suave look that says you like nice things and impressing others."

"Well, there you've got it wrong. I only want to impress pretty women." I laugh again.

The guards bring us our small glasses of blood after that and I meekly try to sip it. I figure making it last longer might make me feel less hungry. It doesn't.

"What did you mean about 'company' earlier?" I ask, setting the glass on the floor beside me. "Surely, some other poor fool has been in here with you before me. Otherwise, you and I have made some pretty huge mistakes." He only shrugs. I let myself watch him lace his fingers together, showing off his own daylight ring.

"Yeah, there have been others but they never lasted. Besides, none of them were nearly as personable as you or as pretty." He cracks a smile at me. I don't miss that the other vampires that have been here are all dead but I choose not to dwell on it. I haven't cried the entire time I have been with the Augustines. I am not having that breakdown tonight.

"Oh, aren't you a tease. I bet you say that to all the girls." I shift to lying on my stomach. I'm still so exhausted that all I want to do is lay down.

"Well, I haven't had many opportunities to try my lines lately. You're the first Augustine girl in years that I know of." I feel my stomach drop. That's not what I want to hear.

"I'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing."

"Most likely, it's a little of both. On the bright side, you'll probably be the one fawned over at the New Year's cocktail party."

"The what?!" I exclaim, pushing myself up off the floor. It's hard to do and I notice Enzo looks fairly concerned that I'm not going to be able to get up. But I do get up. I just have to cling to the bars to stop myself from falling over. I've actually been cooperative lately so why they keep vervaining me is an utter mystery.

"Every year on New Year's Eve, we get out for the evening." I must look excited because the next thing Enzo says is, "Don't get your hopes up. We just trade these cages for a new one. The Augustines throw a cocktail party annually where they serve us up like a buffet to their guests."

"And you've never tried to escape? That'd be the opportune moment, wouldn't it?"

"It's a lot more complicated than you think, Nora. We have our wrists shackled and they only let us out one at a time. Besides that, they drug you so much you're not even sure how you got there. You can't do it when you're as weak as you are." I know he's right, even though I'm tempted to say that I could still manage to rip out his throat. Dr. Whitmore keeps me so frail even now that I can't imagine anything will change by the time New Year's Eve rolls around.

"There has to be a way out of here, Enzo. I can't accept that we're just going to be the Augustine Society's experiments until we lose our minds or they kill us." He gives me an understanding look but I already know there's nothing we can do. If there was any way out of this place, Enzo wouldn't be here now. "Maybe I'll just start thinking about it and make us a list."

The next few months leading up to New Year's Eve are the worst of my life. Every time I see Dr. Whitmore is worse than the last. He tries something new every day, which makes me believe his imagination is completely overactive. Then again, so is mine. Weeks ago, I decided I wasn't going to give Dr. Whitmore what he wanted from me; he wasn't going to see me feel that pain. So I stopped screaming. Now I just make myself look at the ceiling and think about killing him. It surprisingly works for my peace of mind but it doesn't help me in the torture arena. The fact that I harden up and pretend it's not completely and totally horrible only makes what happens to me worse. Dr. Whitmore has taken me to every limit imaginable and I have almost given in every single time. Luckily, I always hold it together until I am back in my cell.

If there's one thing I've learned while with the Augustines, it is that killing people is easy but making them suffer is an art. I've killed hundreds of times but at least I can say I didn't let them suffer. It was a bite to the neck and it was over. Sometimes I even compelled them to not feel anything. No, that doesn't make me anything close to a good person but it does make me a relative saint compared to Dr. Whitmore.

I ponder things like this a lot when I'm by myself or trying to sleep. I wish I could say that being here has made me rethink all the awful things I've done, made me feel guilty, made me regretful, but it hasn't. Even after all of the horrible torture I've endured, I've only cried twice (once was in the middle of the night after a particularly harsh session, the other happened one of the times Enzo volunteered to go in my place). I'm not sure what this says about me, except that I am exceptional at hiding my emotions because I have been close to an emotional breakdown since they first locked me in. It's probably not healthy to go about it like this but it's been working for me so far.

Enzo and I have only grown closer. Where at first I just liked him, I now adore him. I know if he wasn't here, I would've gone mad a long time ago. He has a talent for lightening the mood and making me feel better overall. For all his flirting and teasing, I am sure that Enzo is an undeniably good man. I imagine I'm not nearly as helpful to him, even though I try to be. Enzo has taken Dr. Whitmore's torture for me multiple times, managing to speak up before I can and talk over me when I protest. He doesn't resist yelling like I do, which makes it so much worse because I know he's taking it for me. He's never said but I know he thinks I'm too weak to endure it.

At any rate, I know that New Year's Eve is getting closer when we start receiving less blood and more vervain injections. By the night of the party, Enzo and I are almost too weak to talk. Our cells are opened simultaneously and guards make us change out of bloody clothes into clean ones. One thing I'll say for the Augustines is that they at least allow us wardrobe changes. I'm still fairly modest about it because I am totally braless. So really, things could be worse.

I'm barely able to get it on my own because my arms don't want to raise above my shoulders but I manage. I'm not letting those creeps near me. After a couple of minutes I'm dressed in a new white t-shirt and cargo pants. When I turn around, I look over at Enzo, who's still pulling on his shirt. I let myself look at him. It's hard to ignore just how attractive Enzo is. Being here hasn't diminished him as it has me.

I'm jolted from thinking this as Enzo turns around and a guard grabs hold of my wrists. I jump.

"You like what you see, blondie?" the guard asks, glancing between me and Enzo.

"Can't say I do," I respond, giving the guard a disapproving onceover. He locks manacles around my wrists and pushes hair out of my face. I jerk away. "In my day, a man had to ask before he touched a lady."

"Well, it's not your day anymore and you're no lady." Unfortunately, that's a pretty good point. "You're not supposed to look overly disheveled for the party."

"Why? Does it offend Dr. Whitmore's guests if we look like we've been tortured?"

"Say something else and I'll vervain you."

"Touch me again and I will snap your neck. Don't think I can't do it." I can't do anything of the sort and it's most likely obvious that I can't but I am banking on the fact that the guards are human and scared of me regardless. It seems I'm right but he gives me the dose of vervain anyway. I groan and my knees buckle.

We're dragged out of our cells and taken upstairs to a nice room. I try to remember it, though for what reason I am not sure. There are no guests here yet when we arrive but Enzo and I are already thrown into a cage towards the side of the room and then, we are left alone.

I quickly push the cuffs up my arms a little and reach my hands through the bars. I yank at the lock, even though I know it's futile. I'm far too frail to pull this door open. A human would have a better chance at cracking this lock than I do. "Damn it," I mutter.

"Don't waste your time," Enzo says from behind me. "The two of us together couldn't get this thing open." I nod. Stupidly, I've been looking forward to tonight though I was aware I would never be able to escape. We're weak from vervain and half-starved. Enzo and I don't have a chance of doing anything tonight that Dr. Whitmore doesn't want us to do.

I cover my face with my hands in utter defeat before dropping them. I knew this wouldn't work but some part of me had still been hoping it would. Regardless of any other circumstances, I have been completely sure that this cocktail party would be the best bet. These parties will be the only real opportunity for escape each year because it gets us both out of the basement.

"There'll be other chances. We'll just have to work on a plan," Enzo tells me as he puts his hand against my arm. I freeze before turning towards him. It suddenly occurs to me that this cage is small, probably because Enzo has been the only vampire showing up at these parties for years. I've known Enzo for almost a year and this is the closest I've ever been to him.

I wasn't lying when I told the guard earlier that men once had to ask before touching women. When I was still human, that was very much the case. As time went on, it moved from showing no open affection, to linking arms when you walked, to holding hands, to kissing in public. It's only been recently that people have become more public with their affections. At the time I didn't recognize it but there was something to the way simple touches were regarded back then. Nowadays, you hug someone, you kiss them on the cheek, you shake their hand and think nothing of it. But before I turned, the only contact I had with a man was when one would help me down the stairs. When I was younger, I didn't understand what the big deal was. There's nothing intimate about touching someone's hand, I thought. There's no reason to drive yourself mad after dancing with somebody. Being locked up and tortured daily has made me remember things like this.

When Enzo pulls his hand away from me, I finally understand what the big deal was. I don't know whether I've been so lacking in reassuring physical touch that this just sends me over the edge or whether being alone with Enzo for so long has created subconscious feelings for him. And I don't have feelings for people. I just don't. Maybe I'm not as thoroughly modern as I thought. Either way, it doesn't help me.

"What's going to happen?" I ask to focus on something else.

"Dr. Whitmore will take us out one at a time and do a demonstration on how our blood can heal humans. It's nothing to worry about, really. He'll just cut open your palm and drain a little. It'll be over with before you know it," he responds. Enzo doesn't seem as concerned about this as I am, which is reassuring. He's done this before, multiple times.

"All right." I look around the room again and catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror over the mantle. 'Disheveled' is an understatement for the way I look. My pale face is dirty and my dark blonde hair is verging on brown. It's frizzy, tangled, and wild. "I guess there was some truth to what he was talking about," I mumble, thinking about what the guard said downstairs. I attempt to smooth my hair down but it's pretty useless. "How come you don't look half as bad as I do?"

"I've just adapted to the dirt. You haven't yet." I laugh and try to wipe my face off. "I can help, you know," he says slyly.

"I'll take you up on that," I respond, looking over at him. "Can you braid hair? Because that would be exceptional."

"Do I look like I know how to braid hair?" I laugh again and shake my head. Instead he pushes my hair back and brushes dirt off my face. He looks at me intently the whole time, as though he can't figure out how I got to be so filthy.

"Am I hopeless?" I ask when he finishes.

"Not at all," he replies.

The party officially begins not long after that. The guests look at Enzo and I as though we are attractions at the zoo. I feel completely declawed. They don't look even remotely wary of us. Indeed, I think they doubt we could ever do something to hurt them. But with the state I'm in, I can't blame them. As the night goes on, I get weaker and more exhausted.

I am pulled out of the cage first and the door locks behind me. Dr. Whitmore positions me in front of a small table holding sherry glasses.

"This is 20574," Dr. Whitmore tells them, introducing me. "She's our first female in years and she's rather exceptional. High pain tolerance, incomparable blood, and immense strength." I don't resist as he grabs my hand and slits open my palm, letting my blood fill one of the small glasses. I'm put back in the cage with Enzo after that and I am glad of it. I think I'm about to fall asleep standing up. My worst fear is that I'm desiccating.

Enzo moves in front of me and I have to gaze over his shoulder to watch Dr. Whitmore's demonstration. A woman allowed him to cut her and then she drank the glass with my blood. The wound healed with no hint that it even occurred. They take Enzo next and do the same thing. He then returns to standing in front of me.

By the time the party has ended, I'm leaning against Enzo and the side of the cage to stay standing. I suppose this is why none of the humans here fear us. Maybe one day that'll come back and bite them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey! Thank you so much for the support I've gotten so far! I hope you all enjoy this chapter! Let me know what you think. I own nothing but Nora.**

The Augustines have communal showers, like they're some kind of university. They're the usual shorter stalls that allow you to see other people bathing beside you. At first, I loathed them but now I'm able to see they have their upsides.

Enzo and I are always taken to shower at the same time, probably because the Augustine Society is too lazy to take us individually. The guards don't stare us down, luckily. They're far too busy gossiping about things of no consequence but at least, they're helpful in knowing the year (which is early 1953). Mostly, the showers are just a cause for Enzo and I to joke around with each other.

"Do you sing in the shower, Nora?" Enzo asks slyly today. I laugh while rinsing my hair.

"Maybe I would if I were alone," I respond.

"One day, you will sing for me." He points at me over a tile wall.

"It's been four years and you still won't give this up," I say, leaning up against my own wall. It covers me to my shoulders.

"It's been four years and you still won't give _in,_" Enzo replies.

"I can't just do it on command. I'm not Bing Crosby." He only smirks.

"Well, are you a Fred Astaire? Singing _and _dancing? A jack of all trades?" I laugh.

"Oh please. Fred Astaire would balk at the sort of dancing I used to do."

"Oh, you did that stiff and boring dance where you aren't allowed to touch your partner." He leans back under the shower head and runs a hand through his hair.

"It was stiff and boring because us women were stuffed into corsets and couldn't breathe." I take the small bar of soap the Augustines allot us and try to rub it everywhere. I never feel like I can get clean enough.

"Well, what was the point of not touching? You needed to be demure?"

"I'm sure that was the intended idea but mostly, what it achieved was anticipation. You can look but not touch. It was maddening." I try to reach my back but decide I'm too fatigued.

"Some things haven't changed," he replies rather quietly. I manage to drop my bar of soap and it clatters to the ground.

"I'll say," I mutter, ducking down and grabbing the soap.

Four years is an awfully long time to be confined with only one other person. Sure, we see other people but they all work for the Augustine Society and they are all horrible. Enzo and I have spent years as each other's only friend and I think it's really beginning to take its toll on us.

Relying on and being friends with someone else is really unusual for me. Even when my maker was still living, I didn't let him get too close emotionally or physically. I knew how to take care of myself and that was all. I have never once considered taking in another person and having to worry about them too. But here in Augustine, with Enzo, it's as if I wasn't given a choice. We're thrust into adjacent cells, forced to know when the other is getting tortured, and spend almost entire days in only each other's company. Caring about one another was absolutely inevitable. I just didn't expect it to be this intense.

Long story short, I believe Enzo and I have developed feelings for each other. Enzo has always been a flirt but now it's different and I am completely aware of the changes that I've undergone. I'm guessing something about being tortured all the time has made me softer. I'm also guessing something about how pathetic I always look, vervain flowing through my blood, has caused Enzo to feel sorry for me.

Suddenly, the water shuts off and I hear Enzo groan. I lean up against the tile wall and exchange a look with Enzo as the guards come in. I call them One and Two because they've never revealed their names to us. Two's the one that has a thing for me. I still can't say I understand that because I'm under the impression that the Augustines thought of us as animals. They're not exactly wrong. At times, I'm not much better than one.

Two hands me a towel rather reluctantly while One tosses Enzo another a couple of shower stalls down. They never allow us to shower next to each other. I'm not sure what they think will happen. Perhaps they're scared if we get close enough, it'll be easier for us to take them down. Maybe they just think one thing would lead to another and we'd end up having sex on the floor. Don't they know we have some decency?

I grab the towel and barely take the time to dry off, still narrowly behind my tile wall. I yank the pile of clothes that Two has been holding out of his hands and get dressed quickly. Green cargo pants and a flimsy white t-shirt. The uniform never changes. The shirt sticks to my back and even my unfortunately braless front so I cross my arms when Two gestures at me to come out of the stall.

"One of these days I'll convince Dr. Whitmore to let me have a night with you," Two says before forcing shackles around my wrists.

"If there's one thing I've learned in my time on this earth, it's to be careful what you wish for," I reply, looking up at him. I wish I could compel him to kill the other guard and himself.

"I thought you people considered us animals," says Enzo. "I thought we disgusted you."

"_You_ do," the guard responds, reaching out and touching my hair. "_She_ doesn't."

"And they say chivalry is dead," I mutter, jerking out of reach.

"What'd you say?"

"She said she hopes you like it rough because she's more likely to kill you than kiss you," Enzo nearly snarls.

"Oh, I'm not scared of her."

"It sure seems like you are, the way you keep drugging me," I say. In response, Two grabs my arm and pulls me along. One does the same with Enzo.

We walk in single file back to the cells, Enzo and I wedged in the middle of the guards. We stop abruptly before reaching the basement and I halt to not slam into the guard in front of me. Enzo doesn't. He hits me and I know it is on purpose. His hands touch my back, as though it is accidental, and I close my eyes. Then we move on and Enzo and I are back in our cells.

I lay down and sip my little glass of blood, thinking about a couple of weeks ago, at New Year's Eve. I look forward to it each year, despite the fact that they weaken Enzo and I so much that we're forced to lean on each other for support. It is the only time we're allowed to be close though so I endure it with as much grace as I can muster (which is never enough). I had hugged Enzo this time, like I hadn't laid eyes on him in years. I was sure my force might have crushed a human.

Seems like I think about that a lot. Well, I've got nothing better to do than dwell on things I've done. Most of the time, I just wonder whether being with the Augustines is some penance for the life I've led so thinking about Enzo is a vast improvement.

"Does Whitmore have a favorite place on you?" Enzo says, dragging me out of my thoughts. We don't normally talk about what goes on upstairs. I don't know about him but I spend a lot of my time trying to forget what happens with Dr. Whitmore.

"My stomach," I respond. "It's just about the only part of me he's interested in nowadays. What about you?"

"The eyes." From the way he said it, I knew it was horrible. I could tell from the ghastly way he yells that he must endure more than I can even dream of.

"Huh. He's never done that to me. What's the point of that, do you think?"

"I suppose it's the healing, just like everything else."

"You'd think after all these years that he'd have what he wants from us. How many times can you cut someone open and remove part of their spleen? I did not live through the American Revolution to die on some Dr. Frankenstein's dissection table."

"Oh, you won't. You're far too tough for that." I smile and almost relax. I have a feeling that I will be on edge for the rest of my life.

Other than that and the sleazy guard, everything has been going smoothly for me (or as smoothly as it can in the Augustine Society). In fact, too smoothly. The only problem with it has been the fact that Enzo is taken by Dr. Whitmore far more often than I am. When I first got here, I thought nothing of it. Instead, I was grateful for the off-time. But now, I find it unfair. I'm not sure whether Dr. Whitmore favors Enzo because he is easier to crack or because he's more interesting to study than I am. I wouldn't put it past him to want Enzo only because he is male.

But then, it occurs to me that Enzo constantly volunteers for me. By the look Dr. Whitmore always has, he likes that. He likes that Enzo beats me to the punch because it makes him a more fascinating subject. Besides the fact that Enzo is gorgeous, well-built, and strong, he is obviously kind. That creates a thought-provoking problem for Dr. Whitmore, who clearly looks down on us. I act the way he expects all vampires to act. Enzo doesn't.

I assume that's part of the reason I've become so taken with him. There's been an awful lack of kindness in my long life. I'm not used to it. I've said many times that I've never really had friends, other than my sire and he was incredibly insensitive. He threw me out on my own to make me learn. He became angry whenever I didn't give him exactly what he wanted. With him, I felt like being a vampire was a curse, an excuse to be cruel to those who could not fight back. For what it's worth, I would have died without that guidance. I would have been careless, even stupid. I credit my sire with the mindset I have today. He is the reason I am strong but he is also much of the reason why I'm alone.

Enzo is nothing like that. Where I would protect myself before even thinking about others, Enzo would jump in front of them. He does it for me continuously and refuses to acknowledge it after the fact. I admire him for it but I also desperately want better for him. I want Enzo to have a chance at a life outside of this place. A vampire like me was always the intended victim of the Augustine Society, one that has been merciless and killed without a thought. If only one of us can get out of here, it has to be Enzo.

"20574," Dr. Whitmore says the next morning, "you look more energetic than usual." By "energetic," I assume he means that I'm not lying on the ground, almost knocked out. I'm just lying on the ground half-asleep today.

"I take that as an insult," Enzo interjects.

"Oh, you're such an attention hog," I mutter, pulling myself up by the bars. "I'm ready." I am barely standing but that won't matter so much when I'm strapped to the table. Besides, this is exactly the way Dr. Whitmore wants me. I'm too much of a "threat" otherwise.

"She's too weak for it, don't you think, Dr. Whitmore?" Enzo asks. Dr. Whitmore turns toward his cell, his interest peaked. "Let her sleep it off. I'm more fun than her anyway."

"Enzo," I choke out, "don't." But I am too late. Dr. Whitmore unlocks Enzo's cell and pulls him out. The guards shackle him and make him go in front of them and Dr. Whitmore. I close my eyes and groan. "Dr. Whitmore," I say. He turns back to me while the guards continue moving Enzo upstairs. "Dr. Whitmore, you can't do this. You know what he's doing. Stop taking him when he's just standing up for me."

"Maybe you should start speaking up," he responds and turns to leave.

"Wait," I murmur. "Just wait a second. I have a question about your research." I press myself against the bars, holding onto them with both hands.

"What question could you possibly have about my research?"

I respond before I have the chance to question it. "Why do you need two vampires?" He shakes his head with a laugh.

"Trying to save your own skin? I'm surprised you didn't try that sooner, 20574."

"I'm not talking about saving myself. You've said before I'm your first female in years. Don't you have enough male research?" I can tell I've finally said something that interested him. "You've had Enzo for a long time. Don't you know everything about him by now?" He laughs again, as though what I've said is the best joke he's heard in decades. "What the hell is so funny?"

"What's funny is that I thought I had you pegged, 20574, and now you've genuinely surprised me. To be honest, I've been under the impression this entire time that you had your emotions switched off." I raised my eyebrows. "Yes, I know you can do that. But I digress. I've just long thought that must be the case. You don't seem to feel any pain, you don't cry, you don't seem to have any weakness. In fact, you come across cold. You may threaten the guards but with me, you just take it. Now I don't know whether it's because you're passive or because you want me to think you're strong."

"I'm afraid I don't see the point to this."

"The point is that you aren't nearly as tough as you want me and your cellmate to believe." My grip tightens on the iron bars. "I wondered whether this would happen when I acquired you, whether the two subjects would become fond of each other. I knew 12144 took to you because he volunteers to take your place so often. But you never seem to react to that so I figured you were just gone, mentally."

"So this is a psychological experiment too for your own sick enjoyment? Why doesn't that surprise me?" I groan.

"Oh, don't try to change the subject. You don't want me to know you care about anything other than yourself and you really had me believing that. I thought _this_ girl may survive everything I put her through. But I'm glad you slipped up here. It makes you a far more interesting subject when I know what buttons to push."

"I don't know what you're implying. I thought you could just give the guy a break," I respond, trying my hardest to sound firm.

"Oh, 20574, you're far more intriguing than I anticipated. You've got a sensitive side and you just don't want to show it."

"I was under the impression you thought vampires were nothing more than mindless monsters, eager to kill whatever crosses their path. It doesn't sound like there's a sensitive side to that creature."

"Well, I've always heard that vampires feel things more fiercely than humans. That's why they have a humanity switch… because it's too much to bear."

"The humanity switch is a myth and I am growing tired of going in circles with you. I just wanted to offer a solution that would make life easier on you. You don't want to take it. That's fine." He laughs again.

"20574, you had best hope that you and 12144 especially, continue to serve a purpose here at Augustine because the minute either of you fail to interest me anymore, I will kill you." My face falls and I realize I haven't put up a very good façade this entire time. "I'm glad to know that you actually care about something. It will better help me break you."

I contemplate grabbing him through the bars but I'm positive I'm too weak to manage it. Dr. Whitmore clearly thinks he finally has something on me that will change the game. I want to think he's wrong. There's no possible way he can use friendship with Enzo against me. If he wanted to do something like that, he could've been using me against Enzo and quite frankly, the only way to do that would've been to have us tortured in front of each other. But what more could he do to us that he hasn't done already?

When he leaves, I shake the bars and groan in frustration. I don't know why this is getting to me. Break me, he'd said. Break me. What does that mean?

I hear Enzo begin to yell and I wince. Is it worse than usual or am I imagining that? "Damn it," I mutter. After I shake the bars again, I settle down onto the floor and put my hands over my face. They're quivering. I don't know what's happening to me. "Don't let this get to you, Nora," I tell myself. "Hold it together." I'm no longer sure whether I'm unnerved or just wildly angry. It's possible that it is both.

After a while, Enzo is returned to his cell. I push myself off the floor and look over at him eagerly. He's okay. Well, as okay as he usually is. There's blood everywhere but that's normal. His shirt's torn but again, nothing out of the ordinary. I audibly breathe a sigh of relief and the guards leave.

"I heard what you tried to protect me today," Enzo says, leaning up against a wall and gazing over at me. "Why would you do that?" I shrug as though it's no big deal.

"It wasn't to protect you. It's just common sense that the Augustines only need one vampire," I respond. I cross my arms, nails digging into my skin.

"Well, whatever it was, it wasn't smart," he tells me. I raise my eyebrows. "Whitmore thought you had flipped your humanity switch. It was probably better that way."

"I know but am I supposed to let you volunteer for me all the time with no payback?"

"Yes, you are."

"But I owe you," I say, almost quietly.

"No, you don't. I'm just trying to help you, do you some favors." He leaves it unsaid that he does this because I am weak and frail. I am doing it because… because why?

"All the time for four years?" I ask. "I just want to help you too."

"You've just made it harder on yourself, Nora. That's all I'm saying."

"How? Did Whitmore honestly put us down here together and expect us to not become friends?" He only shrugs. "Come on, Enzo. You've done so much for me and I've never thanked you so just consider this stupid slip-up me trying to repay you."

"Well, I'm flattered that you attempted to get me set free," he replies with a grin. "You must like me after all."

"Only a little."

Then we hear something. It is the distinct sound of a man screaming. I know it. I am accustomed to it. But it isn't Enzo, who I'm usually hearing. It's someone else. Enzo and I exchange a desperate look with one another. I cross my fingers that it's something finally ripping the Augustine Society to shreds but as it carries on, I come to the conclusion that it's another vampire. After four long years, another vampire finally joins the fray.

It isn't long before they bring him down. He's another good looking guy, dark-headed and pale. The guards push him into the cell beside Enzo. I watch him groan as he hits the ground.

"Pick yourself up, soldier," Enzo says. There's a small opening between his cell and the new guy's so he can see him. I watch the new vampire look through the small bars at Enzo and then over to me. "Name's Enzo and that's Nora."

"Damon," the new vampire responds and from that one word, I know that everything has changed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey! Sorry for the wait! But you guys are awesome! Thank you so much for all of the support. I've tried to respond to all of the reviews I've gotten. I am just incredibly appreciative that you've read this and enjoyed it enough to comment. I hope you enjoy this chapter. In the next, Damon will escape. So as usual, I only own Nora. Tell me what you think!**

Damon has a brother, a guy I've begun envisioning as a knight in shining armor. They have fallings-out now and then ("Well… maybe all the time," Damon begrudgingly admits one day) but there's no doubt he's going to look for him. I haven't pinned my hopes on something like this in a long time. New Year's Eves are only looked forward to because I'm close to Enzo, and I guess, Damon now. They no longer hold a slim promise of escaping. But Damon's brother might be a legitimate possibility.

Stefan is his name, an unstable vampire whose father served as his first meal. He's responsible for forcing Damon to turn and he has an unfortunate tendency to tear his victims' heads from their bodies. I grimace when I hear that. Enzo barely bats an eye. "I've always wanted a brother," he declares.

As time continues to move on, the likelihood of Stefan stumbling upon us declines, even if he just lives a couple of towns away in Mystic Falls. This obviously disheartens Damon but Enzo convinces him not to give up on him, probably because Enzo and Damon automatically clicked. Many days I just watch them play off of each other, trying to decide which of the two is more charming. They're remarkably alike; handsome, funny, amiable. So I take to Damon too, even though just allowing Enzo in had been a huge step for me.

That isn't to say that Damon and I don't get along. I've enjoyed his addition to the Augustines and not only because with him here, there is less time for each of us with Dr. Whitmore. My original statement to Enzo about Damon was, "I like him but not as much as I like you." Still, as time went by, I found that we got on well. Damon and I originally bonded early in his first year when he asked us how we died. Enzo was done in by consumption, not a pleasant way to go by any stretch of the imagination. I can picture him now, practically unconscious and coughing up blood. But I was killed by a gut shot. As it turns out, Damon died the same way. "Excruciating, isn't it?" he'd asked. "I wouldn't wish it on anyone… except Dr. Whitmore," I'd responded. Damon had smirked and that's when I knew we'd become friends.

I've gained his respect by not screaming during Dr. Whitmore's torture. It's clear that Damon doesn't have the coolest head so he doesn't understand how I do it. "How are you able to hold back and we're not?" he questioned, pointing to himself and then through his grates at Enzo.

"Because you're men and I'm a woman," I responded jokingly. They had laughed at that.

"Then why are you more affected by the vervain than we are, huh?"

"Oh, she's old," Enzo interjected with a smirk. "She can't handle it the way we do."

"Hey, 'Age before beauty,'" I said.

So Damon really fits in with us. He's funny, flirty, and dangerous. He's like the best of Enzo and I swirled together into one person. The three of us become tight-knit and by the end of Damon's first year with us, it was like he'd always been here.

Damon's entrance into the world of the Augustine Society directs attention away from Enzo and I for a while. I'm glad of it since I'm still wary of Dr. Whitmore's threat to me. It may have been idle, as nothing out of the ordinary has happened since, but it's just as possible that Damon is the new star of their project. If Dr. Whitmore likes him half as much as Enzo and I do then that's no surprise.

At his first New Year's Eve, Damon is the focal point. Enzo and I, huddled together in the cage and starving, watch as Dr. Whitmore fawns over him. The women in the room do their best not to show their attraction to a so-called monster. I want to roll my eyes, because neither Enzo nor I have ever fetched such a reaction, but perhaps it's a good sign. For the first time in a while, I think we've got some hope for getting out of this place. Even if Stefan is a dead end, Damon is more than capable of carrying his weight and he is itching to get out of here.

By ourselves, Enzo and I will never get anything done. I understand that in this moment, my weak fingers wrapping around a bar to hold myself up. Enzo stares at me under hooded brows and has a hand against my back as though he's worried I'll fall. But Damon, even while totally disgusted with the situation and his surroundings, manages to look strong. He stands tall and straight, giving Dr. Whitmore his hand so it doesn't have to be grabbed.

The rest of the night I dwell on trying to come up with a plan but I'm constantly distracted from it as I feel Enzo press against my back. Finally, I just decide to think about it tomorrow but I don't do it then either. Instead, I think about the night before in great detail until Damon interrupts my thoughts.

"And you guys look forward to that every year because…" Damon prompts, looking through his small grate at Enzo and then back to me.

"It's a break in the routine," Enzo responds. I nod, even though I'm not sure Damon can tell that with me lying on my back.

"And if we were going to get out, that's the only time there may be an opportunity," I say. I admit to myself that I look forward to New Year's Eve because I get to be near Enzo, despite the fact I'm starving and drugged. Honestly, I believe it keeps me from going mad so I can't even find it within myself to be embarrassed. It's something the pre-Augustine-Nora would scoff at, the idea that I'm replaying moments from something that occurs once a year. She'd tell me to pull myself together and worry about getting out, damn the others. But Augustine-Nora, she has no problem clinging to one of the only genuine friends she's ever made.

"Have you thought about-"

"Yes," I interject, twisting my daylight ring around my finger. "We've thought of it all and Enzo tried it all before either of us joined the fray."

"There's got to be something we can do." Damon is done believing that Stefan will find us and frankly, so am I. The more I think about it, the more I consider the idea that Damon's brother may not even know he's missing. The relationship between them was tumultuous at best. So Stefan isn't the best person to pin our hopes on. If we're getting out of here, it will be on us. "Let's all come up with our best idea and we'll decide if any of them will work."

My best idea revolves around breaking the shot glasses our blood comes in each day and stabbing the guards in the throat with broken glass. My plan also stops there. Enzo's isn't much better and Damon's needs us all to be at halfway decent strength to achieve anything. So nothing comes of that and years pass on with none of us coming up with anything better.

There's still a pattern with the Augustines; one of us goes a day, leaving the other two alone with each other. I like it when I'm left with Enzo because he's a perfect distraction. I can watch and talk with him uninhibited, thinking of my foolish memories of old New Year's Eves. With Damon, there's still a good amount of distraction but maybe he's just not as adept at it as Enzo is. I'm not sure what the two of them talk about when I'm absent. But even with having Enzo and Damon as diversions, there's something about hearing either of them in pain that I'm never fully prepared for. Every day that one of us is brought back down to the basement still alive, I'm grateful.

I can begrudgingly admit that it isn't _all _bad. There is still communal shower time, which sadly enough, is my main form of entertainment. One time, they vervained the water supply and all three of us jumped out, screaming. When the blisters and burns healed, I was able to laugh about it.

In 1955, we get a radio. It's an old thing that the guards tune to whatever they want and it plays almost constantly. Most of the time, we listen to sports games, which none of us cares about. But sometimes we get to listen to music. I fawn over singers like Peggy Lee, reigniting my love for singing (which I still have never done for my cellmates).

Other than that, Damon has Enzo and I hooked on truth or dare. It's a game I never used to be fond of but it always results in laughs and in-depth conversations that last too long.

"What exactly can you 'dare' us to do?" I ask, pondering our obvious limitations the first time Damon convinces us to play.

"Oh, we can think of something," he responds. Enzo only smirks.

"All right, I'll go first," Enzo says. "Damon, truth or dare." I see him wink at me so I sit up, leaning my back against the wall, legs straightening out.

"Truth," Damon replies.

"Tell us about your girlfriends back in Mystic Falls." The corners of my mouth turn up in a smile. "And don't leave anything out. We want to know all about your Sunday drives with them in your gorgeous convertible." I laugh.

"Eh, the only girl I've tried to impress was more of a horse-and-carriage type girl," Damon replies.

"Just _one _girl?" Enzo says in disbelief. I have to admit, it does seem strange for a guy like Damon to have only wanted one woman in his whole life.

"I've never met another one like her." Enzo considers that for a moment and looks over at me, hair falling in his eyes.

"Fair enough." Damon tells us about Katherine, a vampire who may or may not be dead. Truthfully, I think she sounds like a manipulative liar, stringing Damon and his brother along so that she'd never actually be forced to choose. But Damon lights up when he says her name. I wonder what it's like to love someone that much.

"What about you, Nora?" Damon asks at the end of his spiel. "You've probably got the most interesting love life of us all. Didn't you work in a club or something?" I laugh again.

"I worked in a speakeasy a couple of decades ago and if anything happened then, I was too drunk to put it to memory," I respond. The 1920s are a long alcohol-induced blur. "But there's just been my maker."

"Your maker?" Enzo questions. He's the only one of us standing and his hands are linked through the bars in front of him.

"Katherine was my maker so I understand," Damon says. I doubt that. Where Damon was fooled into believing that Katherine was actually a good person beyond a good lover, I never had any doubt that my maker was mean.

"Yeah, he was a real piece of work. When I was human, we were engaged to be married and nothing ever came of that, luckily. The night before our wedding, he slipped me his blood in a glass of wine and shot me in the stomach with a musket. When I woke up, he left me to my own devices so I taught myself everything. Then he had the audacity to tell me that I learned it all the wrong way."

"A real charmer," Enzo responds.

"Oh, yes. And that was only the beginning." So I tell them a fraction of the things he did and told me, none of it good.

"And you slept with this guy?" Damon asks.

"You know, at times, he wasn't that bad. Or maybe, at times, I was worse than he was." Enzo scoffs as though that is impossible to believe of me. This is one of the reasons I value and regard Enzo so highly. I think I could murder a child in front of him and he would forgive me for it. Where once I viewed being with the Augustines as a punishment befitting my crimes, I almost think of it now as a second chance, an opportunity to leave the bad stuff behind. I don't have to be an antagonist anymore. I can be good.

"Where's the bastard now?" Enzo says.

"Oh, he killed himself when the stock market crashed in '29. He took off his daylight ring and walked out in the sun. The ironic thing is, he didn't need money to live on. He was a vampire. But he was always so damn dramatic and hey, he was a thorn in my side so I'm glad he's gone." They seem to accept that as the end of my story and I'm glad because I don't like to dwell on bad memories.

"Okay, Enzo, you're up," Damon says. "Any pretty girls?"

"Too many to count," he responds. Damon grins from his vantage point on the floor of his cell. "But there actually has been one."

"Please, not your maker!" I say. Enzo smiles and shakes his head.

"No, not my maker. But she is a vampire. Elegant, tough, and stunningly beautiful, of course. Nothing's ever happened, not much opportunity for it anymore, I suppose. But she's excellent company. Maybe if we ever get out of here, I can finally do something about it." I study Enzo throughout this exchange. He's looking between the floor and me, remarkably calm. Damon is watching from his stomach, shifting his gaze.

"Where'd you meet her?" I ask. I can't place exactly why I'm so curious about this, except that it sounds like he wants us to believe this story happened long ago when it also sounds current. And again, like Damon, I find it odd that someone like Enzo has tied himself down to one girl, especially one where nothing was allowed to come of it.

"In a pretty terrible place, actually. She was the bright spot." Then it occurs to me that he could, possibly, be referring to me. Of course, no one has ever called me 'stunningly beautiful' but 'tough' and 'elegant' have a ring of truth to them. 'Excellent company.' Can't say I've ever heard that one either but when you've spent years in practical solitary confinement, you would be glad to speak to anyone. I could be wrong and in fact, it's rather likely that I am. But I can't shake the idea that this makes so much sense. All of these backhanded comments and flirtations over the years really did mean something. And if it was borne out of loneliness (as I suspect my affection for him was), so be it.

"Sounds like a lot of your life has been horrible then," Damon groans, obviously not picking up what I am. Enzo doesn't disagree. "Okay, Nora, truth or dare."

"Um, truth," I respond quickly.

"What do you miss most about the outside world?" This is a welcome distraction.

"Human food!" I almost put my hand to my chest and sigh.

"Of all things, human food?" Enzo questions.

"Yes! I love food. I would cut off my own foot for a bowl of pasta."

Damon laughs and says, "Don't say that too loud. You may give _him,_" Damon points at the ceiling, "some ideas."

"Oh, you're right," I respond. "But seriously, you can't tell you don't love human food."

"It's a good cover but other than that…"

"Then you haven't met the right piece of pie yet." I turn to Enzo. "Truth or dare."

"Truth," he replies.

"Have you ever given someone a dream?" I've never done it before, though I suppose it would helpful in a place like this. Dreams have been given to me before by my manipulative maker so that's what I've always associated them with. I guess you could make another vampire see anything you want if their mind was open enough to it. You could let them see their family, where they came from, even make them feel like they're dancing.

"No, I haven't. I'll have to try it on you when you least expect it."

The game carries on like that for a while and the last turn of the night is mine. "Truth or dare, Nora," Damon calls. He's on his back now.

"Just to see what you come up with, I'm going to say, dare," I reply. It doesn't occur to me that they could say anything I wouldn't want to do. Maybe it would be something silly.

"Hmm," Damon ponders, tapping a finger against his chin. "What should we make her do?" He shifts to look over at Enzo.

"Well, Nora's our resident songbird," Enzo proposed, giving me a wolfish grin.

"Oh, don't do this to me," I mutter.

"Why don't you make her sing?" I should have known. Enzo has been clamoring for me to sing since practically the moment I met him.

"Ah," Damon says. "I like that idea. Okay, Nora, I dare you to sing us a song and not just the chorus. I want the whole song. What's your favorite?"

"Bye Bye Blackbird is my favorite," I admit.

"Bye Bye Blackbird?" Damon scoffs. "That song is so old."

"I've been locked in a cage since 1949. Forgive me for having outdated tastes," I say sarcastically.

"The song was old in 1949."

"Yeah, maybe it was."

"Talking won't get you out of it," Enzo retorts.

"Well, I haven't sung in years so it'll most likely be terrible." He shakes his head. He doesn't believe that. "Okay, I'll do it but I can't look at you. It embarrasses me."

"Do whatever you want," Damon says. "Just sing it."

"I cannot believe I'm doing this." I focus on the wall opposite me, trying to remember the tune. Then I sing it. Start to finish. "Pack up all my cares and woe" to my final "Bye bye blackbird." I take a deep breath when it's over, though I'm still nervous. They were silent the entire time.

"Damn, Nora!" Damon exclaims. I make myself look at him and I'm sure he's not just being nice. "You're as good as those girls on the radio!"

"Better," Enzo says, one-upping Damon. My gaze shifts onto him and I realize that what I thought earlier in the night must be true. In fact, I fear he's bewitched. "It was well worth the wait."

"Can you dance too?" Damon interjects.

"Only sometimes," I say, "when I've got the right partner."

That becomes a common occurrence with us Augustine vampires. It practically becomes part of the schedule. Every once in a while, I'll let them dare me to sing. I'll switch up the songs or ask what they'd like to hear (and Enzo sticks with Bye Bye Blackbird). One night, we talk for hours about how we'll enact our revenge. I'm straight to point; I'm killing guard Two first and then I'm slaughtering everyone else, one-by-one and slowly. Enzo's going to start with Whitmore's dog. Damon is going to kill each new generation of his family, leaving one person alive to carry on the line. His idea is my favorite. Eventually, we know each other so well that I feel like I've known them my whole life. And against better judgment (or Pre-Augustine Nora's judgment), I trust them.

It is a few days before New Year's Eve 1957 when everything changes. I am dosed with vervain before even leaving my cell. My knees buckle and I almost collapse, so I am taken upstairs with my feet dragging the ground behind me. I am strapped to the gurney without any fight and I take in my surroundings. The lights seem brighter today and the scalpels look sharper. I do my usual routine of clenching my teeth and staring at the ceiling when Dr. Whitmore lifts my shirt. It's pretty much the same torture every time I'm taken because I think Dr. Whitmore has gotten into a pattern with each of us. I apparently have the most interesting stomach and my broken bones must heal faster than theirs.

"Do you remember a conversation we had about, oh, say four years ago?" Dr. Whitmore asks. A scalpel slices me open from sternum to pelvic bone. I suck a breath in thru my teeth.

"Maybe you could jog my memory," I reply, although I know exactly what he's referring to. Normally, Dr. Whitmore isn't much for conversation. He prefers for us not to talk, I assume because it distracts him. Unfortunately, I think it distracts me too.

"You told me I should have all my male research by this time."

"Did I?" I almost gasp when he does something that I can't see. Keep it together, Nora. "Well, what do I know? I'm an historian, not a scientist."

"I thought you were a singer."

"What?" I whisper. Blood seeps into my shirt and runs against my arms. I try to ignore it.

"You're quite good, a regular Ella Fitzgerald."

"Do you eavesdrop on us?" He pulls my shirt back down over my stomach, which is already healing despite the fact that I'm almost to the point of desiccation.

"Only once. None of you said anything of interest but you did sing one of those burlesque-sounding songs." I gulp and then he cuts open my shirt at the top. Why is he going to the collarbone? That's not normal. "They seemed quite smitten with you after that."

"Well, what do you expect? I'm the only woman they've seen in years." He breaks my collarbone and I jerk against the straps.

"I'm thinking about going harder on them… and you." He walks away from me briefly and I turn my head to the side to watch what he's doing. He's getting a new knife. He dips it in a beaker filled with what looks like water. My blood runs cold when I realize it is vervain. "I'm going to experiment with vervain on you." The knife runs down my forearm and I gasp, clenching my fists. "I'm thinking about doing something wooden with them. That is harmful to you, isn't it?" I narrow my eyes at him. "That's the reason I brought up our old talk. I like your emphasis on saving resources and I've been thinking lately that perhaps, you're right. Maybe I've exhausted 12144's… usefulness." I shake my head at him.

"No, I was wrong. Like I said, I'm no scientist." I could hear the desperation in my voice. It sounds like I was begging.

"Don't be so modest. He's been here for years and I've seen all he can do. He's reliable, I'll give him that, but he's probably served his purpose. And you're right. I only need one male subject."

"Well, have you compared them?" I ask as he walks away from me again. "You know, their data. Put it side-by-side. Um, see which of them heals better. Their morale and all that. Compare it to me. I don't know. There's just… so much you could do." Dr. Whitmore brings the beaker filled with vervain over to me and I know in my heart that I am scared of what's going to happen. He seems to contemplate what I've said but he doesn't respond to it.

"I've never done your eyes, have I?" He sits the beaker on my gurney and some of the liquid sloshes out and onto my stomach. I hiss. "I didn't think I had." He pulls my shirt up again before dipping the scalpel back in the vervain. My nails dig into my palms and draw blood. He pours the vial of liquid over my midsection and brings the scalpel down into my eye.

Then I scream.


	5. Chapter 5

**I'm sorry for the long wait but I hope that it's worth it! I actually really like this chapter and yes, Damon's getting out tonight, which should cause some major drama down the line. As usual, I own nothing but Nora.**

When I am taken back downstairs, I don't spare a glance to the cells opposite mine. I cannot face either Enzo or Damon. Not now and maybe not ever. A guard unlocks the door and pushes me in. I hit the floor and frankly, I'm relieved I no longer have to pretend that I can stand atop my shaky legs. I hear the clank of my cell door being locked and I am ashamed to say I flinch. I face away from the other cells, keeping my hands together so they won't shake.

Enzo and Damon remain silent, probably staring at one another through their grate. I spent the entire day screaming, yelling at the top of my lungs. My shirt, that once was white, is stained red. Blood even coats my skin, is dried in my tawny hair.

I bet they think I'm weak.

"He may kill someone," I mutter, voice barely at a whisper. I know they can hear me though. We're all vampires here. There is no response. Or perhaps there was and I was just already asleep.

I dream that I am dancing, little heeled shoes clicking against the floor like Ginger Rogers. I wear a red dress that is cut low but still tasteful. It is pushed against my dance partner so closely that I can barely tell its design. My fingernails are painted red, clasping the shoulder and hand of the man I'm dancing with. I feel his breath against my neck and my ear. Then I think I feel his mouth.

If I had a pulse, it would quicken.

An eerie tune begins to play low and slow. It feels so familiar to me, as though I know it backwards and forwards, but the fogginess of the dream keeps it from ever becoming clear. I think to myself that I hope I never wake up. I wish I could stay here, with this nameless person for the rest of eternity.

After what feels like hours of dancing, standing atop small heels, the song comes to me. "Bye Bye Blackbird," I whisper. My dancing partner pulls away from me at that and I finally see his face.

It is Enzo.

When I awaken, I am still facing the wall I fell asleep looking at the night before. My memories flood back to me. Torture, screaming, death. I let out a ragged breath before trying to scratch dried blood off my arm with jagged fingernails. Perhaps I've just had enough and at last, I've gone crazy. Maybe I should finally really let myself cry about it. Not just that small, contained crying with only one or two tears that I've done a few times in the middle of the night. I need to sob and shake and place my head in my hands. Almost a decade I've been here and I've not once really let it hit me like this.

I hear the guards coming down for the day, laughing. Dr. Whitmore is no doubt with them. I curl up, pulling my knees to my chest, before they reach our hallway. "No, no, no," I murmur, much too low for humans to hear.

"Who's up today?" I hear Dr. Whitmore's voice and I feel like flinching again. Instead, I force my eyes closed and pretend I am still asleep, like a coward.

"I'm ready for whatever new hell you've cooked up for us." Enzo, of course. His cell opens up and I hear the groan signifying he's been injected with vervain. I cringe. I consider begging Dr. Whitmore to spare him and take me instead. I don't want him hurt.

"Why are you doing this to us?!" Damon demands, jerking at the bars to his cell.

"Because, 21051, I'm seeking out the smallest indivisible unit of your biological makeup and once I can understand you on a cellular level, I can put you to use," Dr. Whitmore answers. I can picture Damon's blank face as a response and Enzo's smirk at him even asking. "You clearly don't believe you deserve this but you should take heart from the fact that your contributions to the scientific community will be a step towards making up for the horrors you've committed." I turn over, see Enzo in the arms of the guards and Damon's knuckles whiten. "Between the three of you, I bet you've massacred thousands of innocents. How many people have you killed alone?"

"Not enough," I say. Enzo is dragged away in response.

Damon and I are left alone after that, quickly joined by Enzo's screams. I am doing what I can to not have a total breakdown. _Don't cry_, I tell myself. _You'll look weak if you cry. _

"So are you going to tell me what happened yesterday or not?" Damon asks. I have turned back to staring at the wall, concentrating on a single point to block out Enzo's yelling. "I know it must've been bad. You're covered in blood and cowering in a corner. It's not like you." I don't respond. "Nora, you said he was going to kill somebody. Are you scared it's you?"

"I'm scared it's Enzo," I whisper.

"Come on, Nora, tell me what happened." I tell myself to get it together.

I gradually sit up, frail as I am, and face Damon. He's standing, looking across at me with bewildered blue eyes. His skin seems paler than usual. "It was a lot of vervain and things that he doesn't normally do. He did my eyes. He did something to me everywhere and all I could think of was that he might kill one of you." Particularly Enzo.

"Vervain? He burned you with that stuff?" I nod, nervously twisting my daylight ring around my finger. "Well, that's new."

"We've got to get out of here and we need to do it soon."

"Well, what the hell do you suggest that Enzo hasn't already tried? None of our plans have ever amounted to anything."

"I know," I respond forcefully. "But something needs to be done."

Damon's quiet for a long while before asking, "And he specified it would be either me or Enzo?"

"Yes because he has more than one male."

"And you suspect Enzo?" I cut my hazel eyes over to him before nodding. "He's a good guy and he's sweet on you, you know." Damon and I exchange a look and I think he believes that I'm sweet on Enzo as well.

"If anybody gets out of here, I want it to be him." I know little of the crimes Damon has committed but I feel sure he is not the monster I am. Still, neither of us is as kind as Enzo and I will pick him before either myself or Damon.

"If anybody gets out of here, it's going to be all of us." That settles it for the time being.

I'm silent for a time, running things over and over in my mind. "Have you ever been given a dream, Damon?"

"Can't say that I have," he responds slyly.

"My maker used to give them to me all the time. He told me my mind was weak since he could get in so easily. He used to make me see a lot of things that made him continue to seem good or useful. As if he didn't manipulate me, I'd see that I didn't need him anymore. So I'm fairly familiar with them… and I think I was given one last night."

"Doesn't surprise me," Damon says. He barely batted an eyelash at me bringing them up. "We were both pretty shocked you screamed, him especially. We've been here how many years and you've never done that?" Only my first few days. "What'd he make you see?"

"I was dancing, that's all." Damon raises his eyebrows but says nothing else.

The day goes by excruciatingly slowly. I sit in the corner the whole day, rubbing my hands over each other. When Enzo is brought back, I look him over eagerly. I think he's all right. My cell and Damon's are subsequently opened and I know the three of us are about to be taken to the showers. Even though I am disgusting, I don't want to go because I'm not sure I can stand up that long. It's also obvious that yesterday shook me up. I just want to stay here and go to sleep.

I keep my gaze on the floor when Guard Two locks shackles around my wrists. He pulls at the chain so that I stumble forward and slam against his chest. I glare up at him. I'm going to kill him first.

Once at the showers, I strip, leaving bloodstained clothes behind me. Blood also colors the drain beneath my feet, washing off my skin and out of my hair. I wrap my hand around the shower head and lean against the wall halfway through.

"You doing all right?" I turn my head to the side to look at Enzo, who is a couple of shower stalls away from me. I am pleased that his day hasn't ruined him as yesterday ruined me.

"Yeah, I'm just tired," I reply. He nods, even gives me a smile, but I doubt he believes me.

As I finger the metal of the faucet and keep my gaze on Enzo, I think of the dream he gave me. For all I know, it is something I cooked up in my own tortured mind and he did nothing but look on me with pity last night. But there was something to it all that seemed familiar, similar to the dreams my maker used to give me. Whatever it was, it had been pleasant and it had allowed me a semblance of normal sleep that I haven't gotten in a long time.

I am given a long sleeved white men's shirt with small buttons at the neck and more cargo pants. I hope they burn the clothes I took off. I am shackled and placed between Enzo and Damon for our return trip to the cells. Once there, I am grateful that I can sit down.

I lean my forehead against the bars and curl my fingers around one of them. Damon starts talking about creating an efficient plan that hasn't been attempted yet. I try to pay attention and even contribute but I'm still rather dejected. None of the plans we throw back and forth sound workable to me. Eventually, I slide down onto my back and fall asleep while Damon and Enzo are still going at it.

The next day, I am chosen instead of Damon. I pretend that I'm not scared or nervous but my hands are shaking and I'm practically dragged upstairs. Dr. Whitmore doesn't speak to me today, pleased with the fact he has successfully unnerved me. New torture along with the threat of death is enough to make a girl fall apart, especially when she's tried to ignore her perilous situation for years.

Again I yell. I hear my blood dripping onto the floor, feel it pooling on the gurney beneath me. By the end, I am close to begging him to kill me off now.

Then it is New Year's Eve, my favorite day of the year. We change out of our bloody clothes into new ones while still in our cells. I undress with only a very little regard to modesty now. There isn't much point. Still today, I pull off my top facing away from the other cells. Pushing my arms into the sleeves of a thin, white shirt, I look over my shoulder and see Enzo in his cell. He stares at me for only a moment, a brief second before turning away. I put the shirt on and let a guard cuff my small wrists.

The three of us are confined to our tiny cell for the evening and we cannot move without touching one another. This is fine with me. I want someone to touch me who isn't Dr. Whitmore.

When we're left by ourselves, Enzo's hand brushes against mine and I fear that is all it takes. I push my cuffs up my slim forearms before wrapping my arms around him. It's not an unusual occurrence at New Year's Eve but I know this feels desperate. Whether he thinks less of me for this or not, it's something I need. My fingers move along his shoulder blades and my cheek touches his neck. For an incredibly short-lived moment, I allow myself to feel safe, even a small bit happy. But it's over quickly and the night begins.

New Year's Eve 1957 is a particularly torrid affair and I am glad when it is over. The three of us are given our glasses of blood and then left alone. I sip at it while watching Enzo, which seems to make the blood taste sweeter. He looks back at me and I believe I see worry and want color his expression. Suddenly, he studies the glass in his hand, as though it's the most fascinating thing he's seen in years.

"What is it?" I ask.

"Well, the thing about a daily ration of blood is that it's barely enough for one vampire to survive on," Enzo responds. "But if one vampire were to drink two rations, even three, every day for the next year, it would build up their strength. So by the time New Year's Eve comes around again, that one vampire would be ready to fight."

"Are you sure that will work?" Damon asks.

"I'm sure I can only try it if we all help."

"That's brilliant," I declare. "It's the best idea any of us has ever had." In fact, I'm shocked no one came up with it sooner. "I'm in."

"Well, you were my first thought," Enzo replies. "You're the oldest and probably the strongest."

"But right now, I'm also the weakest. I'm vervained twice a day at least. And I think they'd see me coming. I attacked them my first day here." I've also openly threatened people over the years, maliciously declared I would kill everyone in this place. The Augustines will expect me to be the one to lead the charge, if we're ever able to mount one. "It has to be one of you."

Enzo wants to argue with that, I can tell. He's doubtless imagined what I could do at full strength and frankly, I agree with him that I might be the strongest. But it would take me far longer than a year to get to where I was even my first or second year here, two additional glasses of blood a day or not. Even though Enzo has been with the Augustines longer, the year with rations could really help him. Begrudgingly, I admit to myself that the plan might work best with Damon as he's the most recent Augustine vampire and thus, would take the least amount of time to get back to some semblance of strength.

"So we've just got to decide between the two of us," Damon says. I nod.

Nerves fill my stomach for some reason as Damon and Enzo play rock, paper, scissors to decide. Damon wins and I shoot back the rest of my blood like liquor in response.

"All right then. A win's a win," Enzo proclaims. "You'll lead the way. Now we've got 364 days to get you ready for the party." He passes his ration through the bars to Damon and I tell him he'll get mine tomorrow.

My uneasiness about Damon most likely stems from the fact that he hasn't been here as long as Enzo and I have. The two of us are more of a team and at the end of the day, no matter how much I like Damon, Enzo is the first person I've allowed myself to be friends with in decades (maybe even centuries). He's always going to mean a little more to me. But I push this apprehensiveness to the side. Indeed, I absolutely have to because stressing out about it only drains more of my steadily dwindling energy.

Each night, I slide my glass of blood across the floor to Enzo and he gives it to Damon. Occasionally, I swipe a finger across the top of it and get a drop or two of blood. It's to stave off desiccation, which I constantly fear is coming on. It's hard for me to believe that I could ever become more exhausted than I already was but it is possible.

By the end of the third month without my ration, I am holding onto the tile wall of the showers to bathe. I let the guards carry me back and forth. Luckily, I think Dr. Whitmore is under the impression he's finally made me lose all resolve. That works for me because it means he doesn't suspect anything of us.

"Truth or dare, Nora," Damon says one night about halfway through the year.

"Truth," I reply.

"What's the first thing you're going to do when you get out of here?"

"I would say get a milkshake but I think I've got to go with brushing my hair." Damon and Enzo both laugh in response. "Hey, I know it's hard to believe but I could've been a pin-up girl once."

"Not hard to believe," Enzo responds. I scoff.

"Well, what about you?" I'm on my back on the floor but I manage to prop myself up on my elbow and give Enzo a ponderous look. "Are you going to steal somebody's car?"

"More like somebody's girlfriend," Damon interjects. I smile when Enzo gives him a glare.

"I've got a list going," Enzo says. He winks at me.

Whenever I think about finally getting out of this place, I don't give much thought to what I'll be doing once I'm out. Will I go back to Jamestown, where any of the people I would've known probably assume I'm missing or dead? If I don't do that, what will I do? I'm entirely listless. I have no friends on the outside. No one is missing me. I have nobody to return to. Where will I go? Who will I stay with? Will life return to the way it was, with me as the lone wolf, trying to ignore this tragedy I've gone through? Will Enzo, Damon, and I stay in touch? I hate to admit it but I know this experience has changed me and Damon and Enzo are all I've got. When I'm back in the real world, they will be the only people I could possibly turn to.

They don't seem particularly eager to go back to where they came from either. Damon may, just because he's in the same situation I am; where else would he go? He also still has his brother, Stefan, there. Damon has told Enzo and I that he promised Stefan an eternity of misery once (which explained why Stefan had never shown up, desiring to set us free). Enzo and I have never understood what someone's brother could've done to inspire such hatred but we didn't question him.

In the back of my mind, I wonder whether no longer being with the Augustines will tarnish my feelings for Enzo. I don't know what they are anyway so perhaps, it doesn't matter. Maybe I'll see daylight and a person begging to be bitten and I'll take off, never sparing a backward glance. Obviously, I won't need an emotional crutch come New Year's 1958. But what might actually happen, what I _fear _will happen, is that I'll be forced to confront things I haven't had the opportunity to act on in here. Enzo is a flirt, that's for sure, but it's become incredibly obvious that it hasn't all been entertainment or something to pass the time. He gave me a dream. I think that's pretty serious.

The year passes rather quickly, all things considered. At New Year's Eve, I shed my bloody clothes with pride, happily offer up my wrists for their cuffs. Hearing the cage door lock does nothing but excite me. I rest my forehead in between Damon's shoulder blades and Enzo has his fingers through the belt loops on my pants. Both of us are weak in every sense of the word but I can feel through Damon's thin shirt that he's back in power. Maybe it's not full strength but it's better than any of us have been in years.

My fingers grab hold of Damon's shirt and I keep my head against his back. "You all right?" he asks. I nod.

"I'm great," I whisper. Enzo's hands frame my waist and I close my eyes. Yes, my first conversation post-Augustine will be with him. Maybe I won't even let it be a conversation. Maybe I'll just kiss him.

My nerves seem to overpower my exhaustion and hunger. I perk up when Dr. Whitmore finally turns his attention on us.

"Ladies and gentlemen, as it is almost midnight, I think it fitting that we toast the new year with a glass of vampire blood, wouldn't you agree?" Dr. Whitmore says. I hear keys jangle in his hand and I finally pull away from Damon.

The cage door is unlocked and I glance behind me at Enzo. His mouth curls into a smile and I feel mine do the same. Damon is pulled out of the cage and the door is locked behind him. He pulls a cuff off his wrist in a single movement.

"Now you see it," Damon says when Dr. Whitmore sees that his hand is free. Then all hell breaks loose.

Damon descends on Dr. Whitmore, driving his fingers into his eyes until all I can hear are screams. The party guests scatter in a panic and a candelabra falls. It takes only a moment for it to ignite. Meanwhile, Damon discards Dr. Whitmore's body after successfully draining him. I want to cheer. He then gets another party guest, his teeth sinking into her neck and blood stains her pearl necklace. He kills everyone he can get to, all while Enzo and I look on hungrily.

"Damon, we've got to get out of here!" Enzo exclaims. The fire is spreading slowly but surely and he's already beginning to panic. "Damon, now!"

Damon rushes to us and pulls at the door to the cage. He groans and I hear the hiss of vervain, a new feature of our cage this year. "Oh no," I whisper before pushing at the door to help Damon. It's futile. I'm too weak to do anything. Even with all three of us, the door doesn't budge. "Find the damn keys!" I yell, pulling my slowly healing hands towards my body. Damon turns around to look over the room.

"There's no time," Damon says. I begin to feel the heat of the flames as he takes a step back from the cage. Enzo and I realize what he's going to do at the same time. "I'm sorry."

"No!" I shriek. I reach through the bars of the cage and grab the neck of Damon's shirt and pull him forward, ignoring the vervain burning my skin. "You're getting us out of here! You promised!" He brushes me off quickly and takes another step back from us.

"No, no, no, don't leave us here!" Enzo yells beside me. Damon's look suddenly changes; from guilt to absolutely nothing. I understand in this moment that the humanity switch isn't the myth I've made it out to be. "Damon, don't do this!" But he turns away all the same and walks towards the door.

"Come back here, you son of a bitch!" He ignores our screams and strides out the door, not a bit of worry on his handsome face.

The fire is beginning to fully consume the room and I know there isn't much time. "Nora," Enzo begins, as though he's about to tell me something of great importance, "I want you to know something."

"No, you don't," I respond, "because neither of us is dying tonight."

"It's over," he says, placing his hands on my shoulders. I shake my head and my gaze lands on his neck. I've found my solution.

"No, it's not! I think I can get us out of here… but we're going to have to blood-share." More fear colors his face and his hands leave my arms.

"Blood-sharing? That's really-"

"Personal, I know. If you don't want to do it, I completely understand but it's the only idea I've got." Blood-sharing is more than personal. In most cases, it's performed as a sexual act. It's always been stressed to me as an incredibly huge deal, not something you do every time you're attracted to another vampire. It's far more intimate than that.

"Do it," he replies. He seems sure of it, of me. "You want me on the floor? I mean, you want me to sit down?" I push my tangled hair behind my ears and nod.

"Yes, please," I whisper. I know the fire is burning quickly but it feels like time is slowing down. Enzo sinks down onto his knees and I do the same. "I've never done this before," I admit.

"Me either," he responds. "Perhaps, it won't be so…" Sensual? All consuming? Embarrassing?

"Yeah," I murmur. He turns his head to the side, as though he's a human terrified of what I might do to him. I briefly wonder whether he's scared of how intimate this might be, as I am, but it occurs to me that it's been a long time since either one of us has been fed on, if at all. It's as frightening a concept as it's ever been but combining it with sex makes it doubly daunting.

I've been starving for years so it takes only a little encouragement to make the veins under my eyes darken and fangs press against my lips. I have to do this quickly since our lives depend on it but it still feels like I need to do it right. I try to be gentle, kind, but I've never been a polite eater.

To get it over with, I just go for it. My teeth break his skin and blood runs over my mouth. The reaction to it is instantaneous and I recognize that blood-sharing really is a big deal. I run my fingers into his hair and he pulls me towards him. My nails dig into his back, drawing blood. I hear him gasp, feel his hands all over me, my hair, against my back. I think about telling him to take off his clothes.

No. A moment of clarity reminds me that the heat I'm feeling is real. I have to get off him and save us.

It takes everything in me to pull away but the moment I do, Enzo takes my face in his hands. His mouth crashes into mine and he holds me to him until I feel my lips bruise. If I die tonight, this isn't such a bad way to go.

"Just in case," he mutters weakly when he pulls away. I nod.

"Let's do more of that later," I say, standing up. I'm nowhere near as strong as Damon was but my emotions are running wild. I'm angry, hungry, and a hundred different other things. "Are you going to be all right?"

"Ab-so-lutely," he promises with a grin on his face. He still manages to look gorgeous but I know I've significantly weakened him. I've got to get us out of here.

"Good." I reach above me and wrap my hands around the bars at the top of the cage. I swing my legs up and with two good kicks, the door opens. I jump out in time to see Guard One coming to check on the situation. It's been years since I've had blood on my hands and I'm pleased that his will stain mine, even if he's only second on my list. I grab his collar and bring his neck to my mouth. I bite him quickly and throw him behind me for Enzo. "Come on."

When I turn to look behind me, Enzo isn't feeding. He's too weak to do it. Even after the blood-sharing, I'm not strong enough. Shamefully, I realize that I can't carry him. The fire spreads and I begin to feel it licking against me. I put my hands up when it flares and glance towards the door that Damon had closed behind him. As far as I know, there will never be another chance to escape. This is it. I can either save myself or risk trying to take Enzo.

Pre-Augustine Nora makes her ideas known. Go, go, go. Get out of here. _Save yourself. _But I look behind me and see Enzo. "Damn it," I mumble and run back towards the cage.

He's on the ground, not even close to being able to get up. Maybe he's passed out. "Enzo, please!" I scream, putting my hands against his face. "Please, please, please."

Suddenly an arm wraps around my waist and pulls me back. I shriek as a syringe finds tender skin at my neck. "No!" I cry. Another one pumps vervain into my thigh. "No!"

A last syringe is stuck into my arm and finally, my vision goes black.

**So a lot of this was wine-fueled and I'm sure you can tell but I'm loving it and I hope you all do too! Tell me your opinions! (I also might be making an 8tracks playlist for this fic and I'll let you know if I do. I want to do one for all of my stories but this one in particular desperately feels like it needs a soundtrack, haha!).**


	6. Chapter 6

**Okay guys, this chapter shakes some things up and I hope you like it!**

I wake up and weakly bring my hand up to shield my eyes. Cold stone presses against my back. "No," I moan as I realize exactly where I am. "Oh no."

"Oh yes." I give an exasperated sigh when I hear Guard Two's voice.

"Of course you're not dead," I grumble. "That would've brought me joy." There's a laugh rather close to me and I shoot up, open my eyes. I'm in a cell, that's certain, but I'm facing two empty ones. I turn my head to the side and see the initials "D. S." on the wall. I'm in Damon's cell. And that genuinely makes me happy.

"You killed the other guard, didn't you?" Two is keeping a nice distance from my bars, like I could jump up at any moment and grab him. I lay back down and pretend that this arrangement doesn't please me.

"Indeed I did," I say. There's no point in denying it. He'd probably seen me do it. Still, I hadn't planned on killing the other guard, just nipping him so that it would be easy for Enzo to get some blood. I guess I don't know my own strength.

"I bet you're feeling pretty stupid, pinning all of your hopes on that other vampire. He left you both to die." I clench my jaw. Yes, I do feel tremendously foolish.

"How do you know that wasn't part of the plan?" Even _I_ know that was a lousy response as it's incredibly obvious that Enzo and I were abandoned.

The guard groans and walks away. Briefly, I wonder why they even bothered retrieving us from the fire. Without Dr. Whitmore, the Augustines are nothing. Or so I thought.

At the guard leaving, I scramble over to the small opening between our cells, laying on my stomach. Enzo has done the same thing. I reach my hand through the bars and link our fingers before I have time to regret it.

"Hey gorgeous," Enzo says with a grin. I roll my eyes like it's any other day. "How're you feeling?"

"Tired, how about you?" I can barely tell from my vantage point but I think he shrugs.

"Bout the same." I pull my hand back and Enzo appears disappointed.

"I'm sorry I couldn't do it." My fingers press against the bridge of my nose. I already understand on some level that I will feel guilty about this for the rest of my days. By all accounts, I could have gotten us out. I should have been able to, considering it took three syringes of vervain to put me down. But I've been getting vervained daily for years. I'm building up a tolerance to that no matter how high the dosage.

He shakes his head. "It's not your fault we're still here."

"No, it's Damon's," I reply disgustedly. But deep down, I know I can't blame Damon. There was a moment, however fleeting, where I considered leaving Enzo and saving myself. Damon had clearly had the same feeling. He acted on it while I didn't. For a second I see his face, see his expression transform into one of absolute apathy. He'd flipped the switch so he'd stop caring for us. Or he pretended he did. I'm still not sure I believe in that. "I'm feeling pretty stupid right about now."

"Me too. I guess we should've known it wouldn't be that simple." And now, I'm certain there will never be another opportunity like the cocktail parties. Whatever happens from here on out will be different and entirely constructed around the idea of making sure we don't escape. I wouldn't be surprised if they have someone watching us all the time. "But we tried and at least, somebody got out."

"Not the right 'somebodys.'" I'm angry with Damon, whether I understand his motives or not. Enzo and I are back exactly where we started, with the disadvantage of not knowing what is going to happen next. Damon's out feeding on some beautiful girl, not giving a damn about anything.

"We tried everything we could think of, Nora." I ponder the blood-sharing and shiver.

"I know and I'm sorry about the blood-sharing. I wouldn't have suggested it if I thought there was another solution." It was crossing a line that there would be no coming back from, that much I know for sure. It's something that usually only comes after a culmination of trust, understanding, and of course, attraction. You don't do it as a split-second decision as I did.

"Oh, it was a good idea… and besides, I enjoyed it." I laugh when he grins at me.

"Still, we're right back where we started," I say, immediately changing the subject. If I focus on the blood-sharing or anything else that happened, it'll just remind me that nothing can ever come of it. "What do you think is going to happen now? I thought Damon killed everybody so why did they bother saving us?"

"I don't know. They are a 'society,' not just one man." I roll onto my back and cover my face with my hands.

"Well, this is just swell. I've lived hundreds of years, seen wars fought and won, survived _Prohibition _all to die down here in this place!"

"Hey, we're not going to die. We've survived everything they've done to us yet. We just need to figure out their new system and then we can plan another escape." I reach back through the bars and grab his hand. I fall asleep like that, secure in the fact that we aren't dead yet.

But somehow, I know breaking out will never be that simple.

It takes a while for the Augustine Society to get back on their feet and decide what they want to do next. I assume the damage Damon did has a lot to do with the Society reworking itself. But I know the torture is coming so I try to enjoy my reprieve from it. For the first few months after the fire, Enzo and I are pretty much left alone.

There isn't much more ground to tread after ten years in adjacent cells so we're either stuck with discussing what happened at New Year's Eve (which I don't mind a single bit) or what's going to happen next. Much of what I thought before Damon left us out to dry is still true; none of our plans have a prayer of working. However, I have to admit that escaping isn't on the forefront of my mind in most of my conversations with Enzo. There's no point in discussing it when we have no idea how the new Augustine Society is going to work. We also don't really speak about Damon, though I think about him constantly. Enzo actually seems relieved that someone got out of this but I'm not. Damon was last on my list in terms of who I wanted to succeed. At night (or it could be day, we don't know), when I should be attempting to rest and rejuvenate, I think about killing him.

The torture starts back some time later and since we no longer have the luxury of New Year's Eve cocktail parties, there's no way of telling the date. This incarnation of the Augustines is much tighter than the last. If there are discussions with us, they include no valuable information. A new Whitmore is the head and he's just as bad as (or worse than) the first. He rarely speaks to me at all and I'm guessing he plays that same game with Enzo because neither of us ever have anything new to talk about.

It must be a couple of years later when they introduce a human girl to us. Mostly, she pulls up a chair and observes us, making note of everything we do. When she's around, I stick to a far corner of the cell and even pretend to sleep. I don't want her to know that Enzo and I are chummy, even though she seems to have figured out that we are.

"So who came up with the escape plan?" she asks one day, weeks after her first introduction. It's the first thing she's ever said to either of us. "Was it-" She looks down at the paper on her clipboard. "20574?" Neither of us responds. "Look, we've got nothing but time. In fact, you two have eternity. So, I'll just wait."

"You'll be waiting quite a while," I mutter, nursing a tiny glass of blood. I think they're smaller than they used to be.

The next day she comes back and asks the same question. This repeats over and over until Enzo finally gives in and says it was his idea. Then she latches onto another question. Enzo immediately answers it. I bend a little to see through the grate and give him a puzzled look. He only shrugs.

"I'm assuming all this silence between you is for my benefit," she says another day. "You're particularly good at the cold shoulder, 20574." I cut my eyes at her. She smiles. "Are you friends or not?"

"Why does it matter?" I respond.

"Oh, she does speak! I was worried you were a mute, you know." She would know I wasn't a mute if she heard me screaming while under the knife. I've never built back up my resolve there.

She writes something down hastily. "Are you a shrink or something?"

"Your file mentions you're a good singer," she says, completely ignoring my comment.

"I bet it does," I scoff.

"She's the best," Enzo declares. I sigh.

"He's delusional," I tell her. "He hasn't heard good music in a long time."

She smiles and says, "All right." I hear her pencil scratching against paper. "Definitely friends." Under her breath, she murmurs, "Maybe more," and strikes her pencil across the page, like she's underlining something. She doesn't think we can hear her.

"You figured that out in two sentences?" I question. She looks up, startled, but she recovers quickly.

"Oh, I assumed you were. You're both rather antsy when I'm around, looking through that little grate at each other." _Damn, _I think as she keeps writing.

"You have a name?" Enzo asks, probably to distract her. "Or should we make up a number for you?"

Her cheeks redden slightly and she responds, "My name's Maggie."

After a while, I start to feel sorry for the girl. She's cute, clearly enamored with us (Enzo in particular), and actually, rather nice. After a while, Maggie calls us by our real names rather than our numbers. Eventually, when she comes down, she writes nothing on her notepad and is content to just speak with us. Enzo does all the talking because I still don't trust her. He tells me there's no reason to hide anything because she obviously has detailed files on us but as far as I'm concerned, she's still an Augustine. The only thing that makes me reconsider my opinion of her is finally understanding that she has no idea we're being tortured daily.

I found it strange that she never referenced the experiments explicitly, though I assumed she knew what our answers would be to any questions about them (something along the lines of "I hate you and everyone involved in this"). The biggest red flag for me came when we were discussing Damon's escape and she didn't understand that we were there as a buffet to the party. Maggie didn't put together _why _we would want to break out. It made no sense to her. I began to correct her but Enzo cut me off with a shake of his head. We were incredibly confused that anyone working for the Augustines could be so blind as to what was going on. Enzo and I appear weak and most of the time, there's at least _some _blood on our clothes. It would've taken me no time at all to assess the situation and come to the right answer; vampires are being tortured. But I have to remember that Maggie is human and also young. I don't know what these people said to her to recruit her. Maybe she's simply here as a secretary, meant to take down notes whenever Enzo and I do anything of interest.

Now I believe she's under the impression that we're working with the Augustine Society for scientific information because we were apprehended by them. She seems to think we're obviously in jail for something and that while here, scientists are extracting our blood for healing purposes. She tells us gleefully one day that our blood could possibly cure anything, "maybe even cancer!"

Maggie, for all her innocence regarding the torture, still knows enough to not reveal any imperative information to us. No matter how many times I ask, she won't tell me the year. This tells me that she's here as part of some psychological experiment, which I've long suspected must be coming. The new Augustine Society is brutal and this Dr. Whitmore wants to know everything about us that he can, including things that were seemingly meaningless to his predecessor. This explains why Maggie has notes saying I can sing and that Enzo and I have always liked each other. I wonder what the point of this is. Is it to understand our reaction to different things? Is it to drive us mad?

"Do you really believe she doesn't know what's happening here?" I ask Enzo one day after Maggie leaves. "She's got to have some clue."

"I don't see how she could know about the torture and not tell us," he responds. I cock an eyebrow at him through the opening between our cells.

"Maybe they just want us to think that. Perhaps, and I'm just going out on a limb here, just maybe they want to trick us into trusting her." I've had that idea from the moment she began talking to us and Enzo knows that. He simply doesn't agree with me.

"Just because you want her to be guilty doesn't mean she is." He likes Maggie, maybe even trusts her.

"Oh, come _on, _Enzo. She knows enough. She won't answer any of my questions. I mean, what's the harm in telling us what year it is?" He shrugs. "Of course, if _you_ asked the questions, we might actually get an answer." His laugh makes me pause mid-thought. "What's so funny?"

"Oh, Nora, jealousy looks good on you." He grins at me.

"What? No! I'm not jealous." He gives me a look.

"I should have known when you suggested blood-sharing that you had it bad." I start to laugh. "I thought, 'This poor girl's dying wish is to be with me,'" he says dreamily.

"I was trying to save your conceited life, you jerk!" I exclaim, pretending to be angry. Enzo smirks. "And the thanks I got was a little bit more than, 'Oh, Nora, you're a real genius of a dame, thank you for having this brilliant idea,' don't you think?"

He feigns being hurt. "Oh, don't pretend you didn't enjoy it."

"Well, that would be blatant lying and a lady doesn't lie. So… maybe I was a tiny bit jealous," I allow. I watch him smirk.

"Well, you've got nothing to worry about. The girl can't even sing and I bet she doesn't look half as good covered in blood as you do." I laugh and shake my head.

"You're crazy," I state with a smile.

"Crazy about you." I roll my eyes but take his hand when he offers it to me. "Would you sing for me?" I agree to it, like I do every time he asks.

In the years after Damon's escape, I feel strangely close to Enzo, closer than I used to feel. I wonder if it's due to the fact that we're back to being the only Augustine vampires or that more time has passed than I realize. But it occurs to me that it all, most likely, comes down to the blood-sharing. Beforehand, I'd been fond of Enzo and I certainly cared for him but I'd felt something in me snap when we blood-shared. And with not much else to do, it's a memory I retread over and over. I tell myself that I'm just trying to figure out what I could've done differently to get us out but deep down, I'm aware that's not at all what I'm doing. I'm back in the position I was in before Damon ever entered the fray; clinging to Enzo, just more severely.

The threat of death doesn't loom over us as heavily in this new Augustine regime. The torture is still… well, torturous but I know that it could be much worse. This Dr. Whitmore doesn't bother trying to emotionally manipulate us and tell us that he's thinking about killing someone. Then again, Enzo and I are back to being the only vampires here and there doesn't seem to be much interest in recruiting more. Eventually, they even wall up the cells across from us. That reads as suspicious to me, no matter the circumstances. What's the point? If they ever get another vampire, they'll have to throw them in a cell with one of us and I'm not fond of that idea. If they were going to place me with Enzo, that would be one thing but I don't want to be stuck in here with someone else.

Escape never seems like a viable option again. They separate us more than they keep us together and I assume it's for precisely that reason. Maggie may not have the full details but even she knows we've attempted breaking out before. I hate to say it but I'm close to giving up hope that we'll ever get out. One of us, sure, that's possible but it's still massively unlikely.

It's one day not long after they wall up the adjacent cells that I realize something's off. There are noises upstairs, loud, like heavy furniture being moved around. For days, noises happen like that off and on, though I can't really tell what's different when I'm dragged into the lab. Enzo says there are fewer tools around him one time and I tell him that isn't a good sign. Then our blood rations drop off significantly. Or maybe, I just think they do. I admit to myself that it's possible that after so many years of this, with Enzo or not, I could be crazy. I could be making more out of what's going on than there really is. But Enzo is apprehensive about everything as well and that makes me believe that something truly is going on.

For two days after that, we're both given a reprieve from Dr. Whitmore's experiments. Maggie doesn't come either. Frankly, all of these things added together have made me anxious.

"None of this adds up," Enzo says. "It's like they're moving."

"I guess that's possible," I respond. I attempt to go through any reason why the Augustines would want to pack up shop and move. None of them sound viable. If someone like Maggie figured out the torture and was unhappy with it, there's still nothing they could do. There's no going to the authorities and filing a claim. Honestly, I don't know what would register as a threat to the Augustine Society. They're unbelievably well-organized.

"Well, if they _are _moving, they have to move us as well." He looks mischievous and I know what he's getting at. "But we've got to know what their plan is before we can come up with one."

Begrudgingly, I ask him, "What about Maggie? Could we talk to her somehow?" He barely considers it before shaking his head.

"If she doesn't know about the torture, then why would she know any of their real plans?" He's right. Maggie's probably fairly low on the totem pole.

Then it occurs to me. "What about the guards?"

"What about them?"

"That one has been making passes at me since the minute I got here. I bet I could fool him into getting close to me and then I'll steal his vervain."

"Nora, we don't even know where they keep that stuff on them." He's uncomfortable with it, undoubtedly because it could be dangerous if I don't succeed. But I'm now to the point of desperation. If they kill me for trying something like this, I may even thank them.

"They've been wearing bracelets lately."

"That's chancy and you know it."

"Do you have a better idea? Should we wait for them to knock us out cold and take us wherever we're going next?"

Reluctantly, Enzo agrees. It is undeniably risky but Enzo and I both realize that something strange has been happening and this may be the only way we get answers. At times, I wonder if this is just another facet of some psychological experiment they're putting us through. Whatever it is, I'll know when I compel the guard to tell me everything.

It's a couple of days later when Guard Two finally shows up, giving us our blood. I drink it first, just to make sure I've got some added strength, and then I decide to lay it on thick.

"So, I was wondering…" I begin rather innocently.

"Wondering what?" Guard Two responds slyly, stepping forward. I want to laugh. I've barely said a sentence and he moves close enough to the cell bars for me to grab his wrist. I pull the bracelet off and it burns me. My instincts were correct.

"Men," I mutter under my breath, moving the bracelet behind my back. I can hear Enzo laughing on the other side of the wall.

"Hey!" he exclaims and tries to pull away from me. I catch his gaze before he's able to do it.

"So what's going on upstairs? I've been hearing noises," I say lowly. The guard's eyes glaze over. "Are they moving somewhere?"

"No," he responds blandly. "There's no more funding."

"No more funding? What the hell does that mean?" Enzo asks.

"Are you saying they're closing down?" I question in disbelief. The guard monotonously nods. Out of every possibility, this wasn't one we'd considered. "How much longer?"

"Everything will be taken care of in two weeks." I hear Enzo echo him, saying, "Two weeks?"

"Tell me everything else you know," I demand. The guard spills information, saying people will be losing their jobs, the lab upstairs would be cleaned out, the entire Society is dissolving. He says we're technically located on a college campus, explaining things like the communal showers and where the cocktail parties were held. In the next couple weeks, the last information will be extracted from us for our files and then it will be over. They, and their data, will disappear and look for somewhere else to go. And new specimens to experiment on.

"What are they going to do with us?" I ask, even though I know the answer.

"You'll be terminated." I groan and I can practically see Enzo shaking his head.

"Stay quiet," I tell the guard and keep my grip on his wrist. "This is much worse than I expected."

"Actually, this could work in our favor," Enzo replies. "If we escape from this, there's no worry about ever being taken by them again."

"They're a parasite. They'll pop up somewhere else in no time."

"But we won't be with them." I can see where he's coming from, especially because the Augustines' resources seem to be dwindling. They won't be able to spare extra precautions against us and once we're gone, they won't be able to come after us.

"Much as I hate to admit it, I don't think we can do this by ourselves." It's as true now as it was years ago when we first formulated a plan with Damon; we need help. One constant of all these years has been that they keep us weak.

I turn back to the guard and tell him to bring the other guard down (a recent replacement for the one I killed back in 1958) after cutting off his vervain bracelet. He does so obediently. I compel the new guard to do whatever Enzo wants and sleazy Guard Two to do whatever I ask.

"From this moment on, getting me out of here is your top priority. You will lay down your life for me if I ask it of you," I tell him. "Bide your time over the next week trying to figure out the best way for us to secretly leave. And I don't care what excuses I give you. No matter what, you will get me away from the Augustines. Do what you have to do. Just get me to safety." Enzo tells his guard something along the same lines.

Enzo and I are thorough in our compulsions, down to them lying to others about keeping vervain elsewhere on their person. Stupidly, I already feel like this plan can't be interfered with and ruined in the way that our plan with Damon was. There are no wildcards in this scenario, unless the Augustines somehow figure out what we're doing. I'm not naïve enough to believe that there won't be some form of conflict but it should be miniscule, if everything we were told is correct (and it should be, there's no way to lie under compulsion).

We have to bide our time under Maggie's watchful eye when we're not being tortured for the next week. She gives no sign whatsoever that she knows the Augustine Society is dissolving, which I admit, I find strange. Still, we mention nothing to her. Whether the girl can be trusted or not, another person does not need to be dragged into this mess.

Neither of us wastes time with happy thoughts of what will happen afterwards. That'll jinx us. I try to keep calm and let my mind be clear because regardless of the information we received under compulsion, the whole thing feels like a massive trick, to me. I wonder if this is just another experiment, to see what we do under pressure. But I remind myself that that would take a whole lot of needless effort, including keeping things from everyone working for them. I try to ignore the prime example of Maggie anyway.

But it's hard not to be somewhat excited. Not much has happened in the years since Damon left, other than Enzo and I growing closer. When we get out of here what will the world look like? What will we do? All I know, and all we've discussed, is that we'll do it together.

"You and I are finally going to be free," Enzo whispers.

"And we'll get to do more than just hold hands through a wall," I laugh. It's unstated but I think we may be going steady. In fact, I think I love him.

I have no idea what day it is when our cells are opened simultaneously. They brought gurneys… and vervain. We did stress to them that it didn't matter _how _we got out, just that we did. They reveal to us that they'd been ordered to do this anyway and to me, this cover makes perfect sense. By the end of the night, I'm not going to care whether I'm still weak. I'll be free and that's all that matters.

"Good luck," I mutter. I'm nervous, clasping my hands together, hoping that we get a lucky break.

"See you on the other side," Enzo murmurs back. He sounds as nervous as I do.

Guard Two shoots a syringe in my neck and my vision goes blurry. I let him strap me to the gurney and he vervains me again. I assume they do the same thing to Enzo, even though I can't see him. Black spots dance in front of my eyes and I feel like I'm about to pass out. I try to stay awake as we keep moving but it's incredibly hard.

I don't know where we are when my head falls to the side and I see Maggie. She's not looking at me but I can see the shock on her face. Her gaze is in front of me, no doubt on Enzo.

"What the hell's going on here?" she demands. We stop abruptly.

"Keep moving," I whisper. I feel the gurney start rolling again, my hair falling off the sides. Groggily, I notice that Maggie is still yelling and I hear people coming. "Where's Enzo?" I groan. "Are they behind us?"

The guard doesn't respond, just keeps me moving. I turn my head and try to see. They're far behind us… and they've been stopped by Dr. Whitmore and Maggie. "Damn it," I whisper. "Stop, go back for him. Kill the girl and everyone else. Just get him."

My gurney lurches to a halt and I breathe a sigh of relief. I keep watching Enzo behind us. His guard is struggling to follow us but Dr. Whitmore has figured it out. I hear choice words, particularly, "Where's your vervain?!" Groggily, I see movement, syringes of vervain, maybe even a stake.

A needle pierces my skin and I yell. "What the hell are you doing?" I demand. "I commanded you to follow my orders! Go get Enzo!"

"My orders were to get you out of here, no matter your excuses," the guard responds. I did say that, didn't I?

"No," I mutter, straining against the straps on my gurney. "Stop!" I hear someone tell us to stay where we are and I eagerly look behind me when Guard Two starts pushing me down a different hallway. My eyelids feel so heavy and the blood in my veins burns.

"Kill him," I hear Dr. Whitmore say and I finally shut my eyes, blacking out as I hear yells.

It must be hours later when I wake up. Instead of feeling the cold floor of a prison cell, I think I feel grass. My hazel eyes open and I see the night sky. For a moment, I actually laugh. I haven't been outside in so long that it actually feels strange to me. The last time I was outside, I was feeding on some poor girl in an alley, desperately trying to make sure blood didn't stain my party dress.

I sit up and look down. Bloodstained thin white shirt, dark cargo pants, boots. "Enzo," I whisper. Did he get out?

_No, _a voice inside me asserts.

I prop my elbows on my knees and cover my face with my hands. They want to run through my hair but they are trapped by tangles. Can I go back for him?

_No. _

I stand up and look around. I'm on a college campus and judging by the small amount of people out, the fashions have definitely changed. "Where am I?" I mutter. I try to retrace my steps and realize that I'm mostly blank on how I got here. I was vervained and dumped after… A hand comes up to my mouth and I know I gasp.

He's not dead. Surely, he's not dead.

_Yes, he is. You practically saw it happen._

I choke back a sob, try to go back over what happened in my mind but it's all so groggy. The Augustine Society was ending anyway. They were going to kill us, we knew that.

"Hey man, you wanna come to the bra burning tonight?" I turn around quickly and see a girl in front of me. She's scraggly looking, wearing a long skirt and flowy shirt. She brings a cigarette to her mouth, at least I _think _it's a cigarette. It smells terrible. "Oh, it looks like you don't have one to burn anyway! Right on! Stick it to the man!"

"It's that obvious I'm not wearing one?" The girl nods with her lips pursed. "Wait a minute, did you say a bra _burning_?"

"Yeah, it's at the rally, man." I must look at her stupidly. "The _anti-war_ rally."

"What the hell are you talking about? We won the war in '45." She takes a step back from me suddenly and I know that look in her eyes. It's fear.

"Man, you having a bad trip? Smoked some bad reefer?"

"A trip? I'm not on a trip anywhere. What the hell is reefer?"

"You got blood all over ya." I roll my eyes and pull the girl towards me.

"What year is it?"

"You're hurting me!" she squeaked.

"I said, what year is it?" I compel her this time.

"It's 1968."

"1968?" My grip loosens on her arm and I think about sinking down onto the ground and crying. I figured it had been a long time but I never suspected this. I spent almost twenty years in captivity. It's been twenty years. "It's 1968. What's the war?"

"It's in Vietnam," she answers.

"Vietnam? What on God's green earth are we doing in Vietnam?"

"That's what we'd like to know, man."

"Where am I?"

"This is Whitmore College." I want to gag.

"Of course it is. Let me ask you something else." She nods unquestioningly. "How do I get to Mystic Falls from here?" She answers me dutifully and I look around to make sure I'm alone. "I'm sorry about this," I say before turning her head to the side and sinking my teeth into her throat.

Minutes later, her body drops to my feet and I wipe my bloody mouth with the back of my hand. Then I fall to my knees and I finally start to cry. It is ugly sobbing, body shaking, and I fear I've held it in so long it will never stop.

The little voice in me whispers, _You can make the pain end._

And I tell myself, not yet. Not just yet.

I get back up, intent on only one goal. Killing Damon Salvatore.

**Originally when I first had this idea, I had no clue I'd eventually let Nora get out but I'm thinking this'll be good for the future. You know, drama for Season 5 (like in the first episode when Caroline and Elena's roommate is offed and Dr. Maxfield and things). But don't worry. Nora won't hold a grudge against Damon for long. Haha. Hope you liked this chapter! I especially love the end.**


	7. Chapter 7

**So I'm sorry for the wait but I hope it'll be worth it. Nora confronts Damon in this one. I hope you like it! As usual, I own nothing but Nora.**

"If I hear another thing about a 'yellow submarine,' I'm going to slaughter everyone on this Greyhound," I tell the guy next to me. I've been relegated to taking a bus to Mystic Falls as I've never learned how to drive and I'm not particularly keen on learning.

"You don't like the Beatles?" my seat partner responds. He's been heavily compelled. I'm wearing his jacket zipped up to my neck to cover the blood stains on my shirt.

"What? Like the bugs?"

"Uh, like the amazing British band?" I give him a blank look. "Didn't you see them on Ed Sullivan? Have you been living under a rock?"

"Yeah, you could say that… Wait, who is Ed Sullivan?" He rolls his eyes.

"Man, you are hopeless."

"Yeah, maybe I am. Give me your wrist." He hands it to me and I bring it to my lips. I'm still exhausted and all I want to do is eat. My teeth break his skin after I look around to make sure no one is watching me. They're not. There is a couple a few aisles away not even trying to keep their hands off each other. Right now, they're the entertainment.

Weirdly enough, I've received no attention since putting on the jacket. Where my appearance would have practically gotten me arrested in 1949, it doesn't garner attraction now. I fit in with men wearing their hair long and scraggly and a sea of clothing in browns, yellows, and oranges. Women are even wearing trousers and skirts so short that I can practically see where they've given birth. I've seen many trends come and go in my lifetime (I threw a party when corsets finally went out of vogue) but I'm not prepared for many of these. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not the worst looking person on this bus, not by a long shot.

I drop his wrist when I think I've had enough and go back to glumly riding along, listening to someone called Janis Joplin wailing and screaming over the radio. I close my eyes while my dirty fingers press against the sides of my nose. I'm not going to cry, not here, on a bus full of strange humans. I've spent most of their entire lifetime in captivity, tortured and helpless.

"I take it you don't like _any _good music," says the kid beside me.

"Would you just be quiet?" I respond, not opening my eyes. "And I do enjoy good music," I say quietly.

"So you're going to Mystic Falls? What's there?"

"Just an old friend." My _only _friend. The only person living who still knows who I am and what I've been through. And I'm going to kill him.

I compel the boy one last time and get off the bus when it finally reaches Mystic Falls. I can admit that the town is pretty. It's a Civil War city, which ironically enough just had its centennial. Damon will be easy to sniff out in this tiny town. There are only so many places to hide and I know a multitude of them from his stories. Unfortunately for everyone, I don't forget a thing.

Unconsciously, I begin scrubbing at the dried blood caked on the skin of my hands as I walk around. What happens after Damon is dead? What will I do? I can't just go back to the way things were before and pretend everything's okay. The only person I've ever cared about more than myself is dead and I couldn't save him.

Enzo is dead and I couldn't save him.

Part of me wants to say that I can't do this by myself but another part says that I'm still the lone wolf I always was. I don't need anybody else. I can take care of myself and I can hunt down whatever's left of the Augustine team on my own. Those people deserve death and they deserve revenge. I can serve it to them.

Still, as I wander the dark streets of Mystic Falls, I wonder whether I have it in me to kill the only person I have left. I don't like Damon. He left me to burn. But before that, he was okay, wasn't he? He cared about Enzo and I and he didn't want to leave us. That's why he turned it off. And part of me is capable of doing the same thing without flipping the switch. Regret and remorse don't come naturally to me. Actually, I would almost say there are countless emotions that are a struggle for me to feel. That's why this pain feels so acute.

I want to give up after a few hours but I make myself take the journey to the Salvatore boarding house on the outskirts of Mystic Falls. It's not the house he and his brother grew up in but Damon's living descendants run the place. That means he can't be far.

My instincts serve me true. When I walk up the drive, the front door opens and out comes a pretty girl dressed in a magnificently short pink dress. Damon lingers in the doorframe, admiring the view as she walks to her car. He walks out, deciding he doesn't want her to leave just yet, and grabs her, pulling at the belt around her hips. Then they are kissing.

I shake my head and roll my eyes. Typical.

I speed ahead and pull them apart, snapping the girl's thin neck in the process. She crumples to the ground and I lock a hand around Damon's jugular, slamming him against the car. I feel it dent.

"Nora! Now there's a face I never thought I'd see again," he says, blue eyes wide. "I thought you were dead!"

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't knock your head right off your shoulders," I tell him.

"How long has it been? Almost ten years?" He looks me over quickly. "You wanna come in? Get a shower? Maybe find a comb? Because after that, you'd be in _top _shape." He winks and my fingers tighten around his throat.

"Don't play with me!" He laughs. He actually laughs. "I cannot believe you. You've still got it turned off."

"Yes, I do and it is marvelous."

"And you're not even going to apologize to me," I state because it's as if he doesn't understand why I'm here.

"Apologize for what? Having the good sense to save my life? By the way, where _is_ your accomplice? The Clyde to your Bonnie? Is he waiting in the bushes in case you can't finish the job? Oh no, he was a bit of a softie compared to you, right? He's letting you do the dirty work."

"Enzo is _dead,_" I hiss.

"Killed in the fire?"

I lift Damon from the car only to slam him back down, my other hand pressing against his stomach painfully. "I saved him from the fire before they recaptured us. No thanks to you."

"How'd you manage that?" He genuinely does seem surprised because he's raising his dark eyebrows at me.

"We blood-shared," I admit, feeling a weird ache at the bottom of stomach. It's a similar feeling to the pain I went through when I was shot; something that hurts so badly, you just want to lay down and hope it ends quickly. Then Damon begins to cackle, like I'm telling him jokes. "I wouldn't laugh at the woman holding your life in her hands."

"God, that is good! I'm sorry," Damon says, still laughing. I clench my jaw. "It's just that that's really… Oh, man, the poor guy. He was already so smitten with you. I bet that sent him over the moon." I bristle at that and almost drop my grip.

"Well, I wouldn't have had to do it if you'd held up your end of the bargain!"

"I'm not sorry that I saved myself and don't act like you wouldn't have done the same! You were the queen of cold, Nora!" For someone with their emotions off, he does seem to be getting defensive. But he will never compete with me in anger.

"I had the opportunity to do _exactly _what you did, Damon, and save myself but did I do it? No!"

"Well, you're here and he's not. You can't blame me for jumping to conclusions."

"Well, I guess I know now why your brother never came for you. You wanted us to believe that he was horrible but you're the real monster of the two, aren't you?" Even emotionless, Damon stiffens at that comment.

"Don't act like you know anything about me or my brother!"

"Well, you were willing to let us die for you and Stefan evidently didn't care enough to come save you. You can't blame me for jumping to conclusions," I mimic. "And you know what, I'm not even sure why I'm bothering with this conversation. You're obviously still the same son of a bitch you were a decade ago." I almost lose control and kill him early, still thinking about Damon saying that I'm here and Enzo isn't. My eyes start to burn.

"Oh, have I managed to strike a nerve? Frankly, I don't miss having those." He pauses. "Nora, are you going to cry?" he asks, wrapping his fingers around my wrist. "I thought you famously only cried when you heard the Declaration of Independence read back in 1776." When I don't answer him, he keeps talking. "So I guess that small decent streak you had finally won out. And you've come here to what, guilt-trip me? I'm afraid you won't be able to do that. I just don't care."

"I didn't come here to guilt-trip you, Damon. I came here to kill you." He laughs. "You don't want to turn your emotions back on to beg for your life? I was so looking forward to that."

"Please. We both know you won't do it."

"Don't you dare patronize me."

"Nora, I know how you work. If you really wanted me dead, you would've killed me before I saw you coming." I hate to admit that he's got a point. Finding Damon again was really the only option I had post-Augustine. If I murder him, I lose the last brief connection I have to those horrible years and what will happen to me then? I become listless, wondering if the torture even really happened to me? I've lost two decades of my life and Damon was there for five years of that. I want him to pay for leaving Enzo and I to die but do I actually wish him dead? "And let's be honest, it's pretty clear you're not the lone wolf you used to be. If you were, you wouldn't have cared enough to hunt me down at all, let alone as the first thing you do after your prison break."

"If I were you, I would be careful about testing me right now, Damon. Because frankly, I've got nothing to lose."

"Oh clearly!" he laments. "Nora, it's… great? Sad? Disgusting? That you care enough about Enzo and your little vendetta to come all the way out here and pretend you're going to off me but you know you're just putting off the inevitable."

"Inevitable what?" I ask. Grief, maybe.

"You're going to have to flip your switch." I scoff and actually let him go.

"You've got to be kidding me."

"No, I'm not." He rubs his neck in mock pain. "And honestly, would Enzo want you to kill me for revenge? I doubt it. He loved me."

"Well, it doesn't really matter what Enzo wants anymore because he's dead." Damon asks how it happened and because I don't see the point in holding back, I tell him everything. By the end, I can feel my hands beginning to shake and that stupid burning is back in my eyes. I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose again and will myself not to lose it right now. I am not a crier and I am not a griever. What's happening to me right now is absolutely ridiculous.

"You see what I mean? You're a mess and you have no idea how to deal with it. Your emotions are out of control in ways that you don't understand. I know because I grieved for Katherine."

"That's different. You were with Katherine." And sharing her with your younger brother. "Nothing ever happened between me and Enzo."

"And that just makes it worse." Damon takes a step towards me and I instinctively take one back. "You wouldn't believe how good it feels to be like this. There's no guilt, no pain, no heartbreak. It's the best thing I've ever done."

"You're just telling yourself that," I say. "You just want to make yourself feel better about all the atrocities you commit so you pretend the humanity switch is real when it isn't. It tells me you're weak because you can't handle the consequences and responsibility."

"And what's the alternative? Mope around and obsess like you're doing? Or would you have rather had me get caught again with you after a weird threesome blood-sharing?"

"I would rather you burned!" He wraps a hand around one of my wrists and I wrench free of him.

"Come on, Nora. How would you know the switch isn't real if you've never tried it?" Some part of me feels like it must be real because I've had this nagging feeling since waking up on Whitmore College's lawn; that the pain could stop if I just wished it away. But common sense has always told me that it can't be.

"What's your vested interest in getting me to turn it off?"

"I've got a feeling that you'd be a lot more fun that way and I'm looking for a partner in crime."

"To do what exactly?" Frankly, I'm interested in any alternative to killing him.

"I've been tracking down some Whitmore descendants recently and you wouldn't believe how big that family's gotten. It's like they're asking for it honestly." My eyes widen. "What? You didn't think I forsake _all _my promises, did you?"

"Well…" He laughs again but this time it isn't at my expense. He knows he's got my attention now. "And you don't want the honor of killing these people yourself?"

"I've found that murder is sweeter when you have an accomplice, especially one like you." I'm not sure if he's hitting on me or actually believes I'm better.

"Maybe I want to slaughter them myself."

"Well, you'll be looking for them a long time. I have all the information in hand. Look, Nora, I just want to make you a deal."

"Truthfully, Damon, there's nothing you could say to me to make me want to be your friend."

"Really? You want to do without me? We both know you won't last long. Emotions make you sloppy in a kill. That may not have been a problem for you pre-Augustine but it will be now, when all you can think about is that Enzo is dead. You don't strike me as a particularly sane griever, no offense. And let's face it, I'm all you've got."

He's right. I knew that was the truth the moment I stepped foot in Mystic Falls.

"Okay, I'll help you kill the Whitmores but I'm not flipping the switch," I decide.

"It's admirable that you want to try to tough it out but Nora, I'm telling you, you will feel so much better for it." I just look at him through narrowed eyes. "Do you remember when we used to play truth or dare and you were always the only one who went for the dare? Well, I dare you to turn it off."

"It's not that simple."

"Are you scared?" Damon asks with a grin. "Come on, you've never been one to back down from a challenge."

"This isn't a challenge. You're trying to manipulate me into playing into your hand and doing exactly what you want me to do. I'm many things, Damon, but I'm not stupid."

"I'm trying to make life easier for you. I don't want you to waste your time crying and struggling through survivor's guilt. You're a vampire and you've got the potential to waste years, lifetimes, never getting over this. I get that you were sweet on Enzo but he wouldn't want you to be unhappy. He'd want you and I to take care of the remaining Augustines together." He smiles at me and I think he knows he's said just the right thing. "You're a beautiful woman under all that grime, Nora. Enzo always saw that. You've got the makings of a great femme fatale. Just like I'm good with the ladies, you can seduce the men." His hands rest against my arms. "You and I could take down the Whitmore family generation after generation and still, never feel a bit of pain. You'll have the revenge you want without any of the heartbreak."

I consider it, really turn the idea over and over in my mind. I want to murder the Whitmores, feel their blood on my hands and savor it. I could do that without Damon. But God knows, he's all I have on this earth. And I just want this ache in my gut to go away, this numbness and this hurt. I want it gone.

So I say, "All right." Damon's smile turns to a smirk. "But let's get one thing straight. I have lived a lot longer than you. I have seen every war waged in this country's history since before it gained independence. I have fought and killed men more than twice your equal. And I shall do so again. If you betray me once more, I will not hesitate to end your wretched life."

"I think I can live with that."

With that, I close my eyes and think to myself that I don't want to feel anything anymore. It feels like I've thought that same thing all day but this is the time it takes. Something clicks and when I open my eyes, the anger I felt for Damon is gone. In fact, everything I've ever felt about Damon is gone. And best of all, that pit in the bottom of my stomach isn't there any longer.

"How do you feel?" Damon questions.

I grin and say, "I don't feel anything."


	8. Chapter 8

**So when I was watching the Vampire Diaries Comic Con panel, they said one of the Heretics in season 7 will be named Nora! That was just wildly ironic to me. But anyway, I'm sorry that I'm such trash at updating. I've spent a lot of the summer traveling and doing things for college (I'm going into grad school so cross your fingers that I don't kill myself with work). So thanks for bearing with me! I also thought I'd tell you that the format of this chapter might be a little strange. It will be a kind of bridge showing what Nora's been up to since she got out of Augustine and bringing us up to present day (or season five). I hope you enjoy it. As usual, I own nothing but Nora.**

Damon sets me up a room in the Salvatore boarding house and it's right down the hall from his own. When I shed my bloody clothes, I contemplate throwing them away, even burning them, but something stays my hand. I fold them up and hide them in a trunk under my new massive bed. Why I keep them is an enigma but I do it anyway.

I meet Stefan, the younger brother, as Damon and I are about to go on our first Whitmore killing spree. "Nora's an old friend," Damon explains, deftly leaving out Augustine details, "and she'll be staying with us a while." Stefan turns a steely gaze on me, one that clearly states that he knows I'm dangerous. I expect to feel a little something when we're introduced, like a tug on my stomach or nostalgia at meeting the star of all of Damon's old stories, but there's nothing. There's nothing to Stefan but beautiful skin and a perfectly straight nose. I don't see the Ripper of Monterey or a man who would betray his brother for one night with the girl of his dreams.

"He's weak now," Damon whispers after we leave the boarding house. "He's trying to only drink the blood of animals." I scoff at that idea. I'm still hungry and I doubt that my appetite will ever be sated.

In 1968, I care nothing at all about who I kill. If it's the Whitmores, so be it, but my desire for revenge is gone. In fact, my desire for anything has totally disappeared. But Damon takes me to them anyway and as I'm always hungry, there are no complaints.

A branch of the family seems to be clustered near Richmond. Damon claims they're mostly adults and we'll have to kill them one-on-one, using our own particular charms.

I kill a grown Whitmore son by seducing him out of a club and letting him think I'm only kissing his neck before using my teeth. Damon tells me to make the kills messy, akin to an animal attack, and while it's difficult for me to push aside my classy morals, I take the time to rip his throat out. I have to admit that the Whitmore boy's blood tasted particularly sweet so I move on to his brothers with equal vigor.

Damon always seems to manage to get to second base before finishing off the Whitmore girls but I never let the men get that far. If they fumble with my zipper or their hands slip down my back, I snap their necks. We move some of them into an alley and tear their clothes and skin. The others we leave in harder places to find.

We leave one Whitmore to carry on the line in 1968, a boy about 20. We won't have to touch him or his children until they're old enough to put up a fight in the late 1980s.

We return to Mystic Falls feeling like conquering heroes. Stefan, an absolute stick-in-the-mud, looks down on us equally. "Where have you been?" I hear him demand of Damon in the next room. "And who is _she?_"

Damon never tells him explicitly where we met. He dodges Stefan's questions about me artfully. Where am I from? Around. Where'd we meet? Oh, a few years ago, we just hit it off. Why am I here? Damon invited me.

It becomes obvious as a couple of years go by that Stefan isn't the fool I took him for. He knows there's something off about me and he doesn't like it. For one thing, he's not fond of emotionless vampires. We're "out of control" and unable to be "reigned in." Damon says that the humanity switch makes Stefan remember hard days that he'd rather forget, the faces of victims he tries to block out. I can appreciate the poetry in that sentiment, I can even appreciate goodness. I've always been taken with people who are better than I am. But Stefan is more a monk than a good man. He punishes himself for existing and so he punishes Damon and I for enjoying what we are. I try to picture him in an Augustine cell, dirt and grime covering his golden skin, and I come up empty. He would never have survived. In fact, he may never have truly fought for a way out. And therein lies the biggest difference between the youngest Salvatore and I. He courts death, may even eventually embrace it, but I'm going to live. Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, I will survive.

Stefan's dislike for me stems from far more than the fact that I've flipped my switch. "She's an _animal_," he hisses when he thinks I can't hear him. Stefan never complains in front of me and for hating me so much, he never seriously makes good on his threats to throw me out. Perhaps he considers it Damon's duty to take out his own trash. Whatever the case, however much it pains me to admit it, there's something about Stefan that I like. Deep down, I must still like nice people, even if they aren't exactly nice to me. "You need to get rid of her, Damon."

"What?" Damon responds. "You worried she's a bad influence on me? I think you've got her beat there, brother."

"That woman has killed so many boarders that people are scared to stay here!"

"And that's my fault?" Yes, this is all your doing. You left me to burn.

"Yeah, that's your fault because you've dragged a wolf into this house." I can hear Damon's scoff from my vantage point in the shower.

"Look, she's not a dog you can train."

"Clearly. A dog might actually listen for once."

"Stefan, you've obviously got some guilt you've got to face. The issue isn't Nora."

"No, the issue _is _Nora. It's her and her siren singing and the way she dresses like it's still 1945. It's the way she trounces into the foyer with an innocent man's blood on her mouth, wiping her hands on a silk kerchief. It's you and her, killing people like Bonnie and Clyde robbing banks." I emerge from the shower at that and wrap a towel around my chest. I lost whatever semblance of modesty I had back in Augustine captivity but Stefan's got sensitive morals that don't need extra treading upon.

"You know what I think, Stefan?" I call before throwing open the door to my bedroom.

"Oh, here we go," Damon whispers.

"I think your jealousy is flattering," I continue, bare feet padding down the carpeted hallway. "You covet my control and my ability to do everything that you can't. Or that you _won't _let yourself do. If you want me to leave, I'll go," I say, leaning against the second floor railing. I don't miss Damon's admiring gaze or the way Stefan keeps his eyes on mine, as if he'd compel me away. "I just hope that you try to enjoy whatever's left of your miserable life because a weak vampire like you isn't long for this world."

Stefan's green eyes harden. "And you're so much better, are you? Do you think cowardly running from your emotions makes you stronger than me? I think it makes you a right bit weaker." Even though my switch is flipped, I feel myself rankle at that word. I have been called many things in my long life and many things by Stefan alone that are much easier to bear than that. I've heard the word "wolf" so often that I've come to think of it as my middle name. "Wild," "dangerous," "unhinged," even "insane." They're all words that Stefan himself has called me. But not once, in my over 350 years of life, have I been called weak. I was thrown out on my own my first night as a vampire, lived a century in the dark, I was a spectator at over fifteen battles in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and I survived twenty years of torture beside a man I loved, over ten of them without ever uttering a scream. I am not weak.

The corner of Stefan's mouth turns up in a smile of utter satisfaction. I contemplate leaping over the rail and killing him here and now. I want to be rid of his patronizing and self-righteousness. But for all of Stefan's judgment, some part of me admires him. Maybe it's the part that still sees him as an almost savior but I'm quick to remember the fact that Stefan never came. I withered in a cage while he battled his demons on the outside, never wondering what had happened to Damon.

Damon gives me a stiff shake of his head. There is no competition. In a choice between me and Stefan, Damon will always choose his brother. The worst part about it is that I can't blame him.

"The really sad thing is, there is no difference between me with my humanity and me without it," I declare.

"No," says Stefan, his voice heady. "What's sad is that you actually believe that."

I don't leave.

In 1975, I'm eating at the Mystic Grill with Damon. I am a sucker for fries and pasta and alcohol so the Grill has become one of my favorite places. Stefan's out feeding on deer or bunnies, being the drag he so typically is. I notice that Damon is becoming bolder as he rests his hand on my leg. I take a sip of my milkshake and don't brush him off when his fingers slide further up, ruffling my new black skirt.

"Is your goal to sleep with every woman you meet?" I ask slyly.

"Not _every _woman," he replies, his lips forming a crooked grin. "Just those I've been in prison with."

"Ah, yes, how endearing." I grab his wrist and thrust it away from me. "I think I'd like something a little bit-"

"Bloodier," he finishes. I nod. "I feel sorry for whatever poor bastard you pick. You have a bad habit of playing with your food."

"As do you," I respond. I grab my coat and head outside. It's simple to pick someone from the Grill and trick them into following you into the bathroom but that can be so trashy. And I'm not a trashy girl.

I sense that something is off the minute I walk out. I turn towards the alley behind the Grill on instinct and I see Stefan talking to a girl. She steps into the light and I see her face. I stumble backwards, almost fall out of my shoes. I shouldn't be shocked since shock is an emotion but I am chilled to my bones by her face. Seven years has aged Maggie only a little. She looks the same as she did when I last saw her, standing over my gurney.

"Who the hell are you?" Stefan questions and I take a step into the shadows.

"Maggie James," she replies, "and you're Stefan Salvatore." I should save him now, run out of the dark and rip her heart out, but I don't know if she has backup. If it comes between me and Stefan, I have to choose myself. "Another vampire," she says in awe. "I'm sorry, it's just all so fascinating." I want to yell to Stefan to run, that "fascinating" means seeing your disembodied spleen. Stefan and I may have animosity between us but I don't want him to be tortured. I don't want anyone tortured.

Stefan beholds her in confusion. I tell myself that Maggie was innocent of the experiments and that even if she wasn't, I shouldn't care. But she's the whole reason the escape plan didn't work. She may have gotten Enzo killed but I'm not losing my good standing with Damon by letting her take Stefan too.

"I'm looking for someone," she states, "and I think you can help me." She rummages through her purse. "I do have a picture… here… somewhere. She's a vampire, blonde, dark eyes, very pretty." That is said begrudgingly, as if it takes everything in her to admit. "Apparently, she has the voice of a goddess."

"Nora?" Maggie is looking for me. I'm relieved that she doesn't seem to mean Stefan any harm. I can handle a jealous human girl but a jealous human girl still working for Augustine would be something else entirely. This is personal for her, I can tell by her stance. She's on her own.

Maggie drops her purse and sarcastically chuckles. "Of course," she murmurs, mad that he knew me right off.

"Let me guess. She killed your boyfriend." I don't have to be standing near them to see how her eyes flash. "What do you know about Nora?"

"I've spent the last two years searching for her and your brother, Damon."

"And why are you so obsessed with her?"

"She knew a friend of mine who died." I've never said "friend" the way she said it. Even as I know that I can't feel anything, it takes every ounce of control I've got left to remain hidden. "I was hoping you'd know where to find her."

"Why don't you do yourself a favor and stay away from that woman. She's a monster. All she does is kill. She's been off the rails since I met her."

"Well, it's a good thing I don't want to talk to her. I want to kill her." Stefan laughs because the idea is as preposterous to him as it is to me.

"So you want me to tell you where my brother's best friend is so that you can kill her over some lover's quarrel?"

"You just said she's a lost cause. I'd be doing the world a favor." Stefan nods as if he truly believes that and something twists in my gut.

"Good luck. Nora's the most treacherous vampire I've ever met. She won't think twice about killing you." Stefan cuts his eyes over at me and gives me a subtle nod. He turns on his heels and leaves. I don't know what just happened here but I think he's given me permission to take care of her.

"Oh, I think she will," Maggie whispers.

I backtrack so that I look like I'm just coming out of the Grill. "Nora," she says when I pass the alleyway. I stop and look towards her. "Nora Darby." She's finally found that picture, one that Guard Two took of me when I first came to Augustine. It's framed like a mugshot, with 20574 emblazoned up the side. She's clutching it between shaking hands. She's scared of me. Good.

"Maggie," I breathe, like I'm surprised to find her here. "Are you here to haunt me? Or are you here to drag me back to the hell that you came from?" She stiffens. "So what are you doing now? Trapping animals and dissecting them? Trying to get hired as a mortician?"

"I didn't know what they were doing to you, I swear it."

"There's no need to play innocent with me anymore. I know you knew what was going on."

"I didn't know. By the time I figured it out, it was too late," she replies. I frown.

"You know, I've been looking for you for quite some time. Damon and I have hunted down most of the others but I've noticed your absence. Frankly, Maggie, I always took you for a foolish girl but never one stupid enough to approach me on my own turf."

"I just want to know something," she says earnestly. I would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to not notice her reaching inside her coat.

"And what would that be?"

"Did you love him?" Her voice is filled with yearning and an ache that says she bitterly acknowledges that he loved me. It sours me to her. What a way to kill someone.

I scoff and say, "I've never loved anyone but myself." I grab her wrist and snap it. A Whitmore syringe shatters on the ground. When she yells, I put my hand over her mouth and slam her against the alley wall. "That vervain would have had no effect on me. You should've known that." I clutch the side of her stomach so harshly that my fingers break her skin. She groans. "I can tell from the look in your eyes that you blame me for saving myself and not him. That's why you wish me dead. Well, since you're about to die, I'd like you to know that his death falls on _you_. Who stopped the gurneys? Who was _willfully _ignorant? Not me." I tighten my grip and tears fill her eyes. "I admire the courage it must've taken you to approach me but it's the last thing you'll ever do. You should be thankful that it's me who's dispatching you rather than your old employer. I'm going to kill you quickly and he would never have been so kind."

I release her, swing my arm, and in the next instant, her head is on the ground at my feet. I compose myself, as if to make sure that I really _can't _feel anything, and look across the street. Stefan is there. I hope he heard next to nothing. I promised Damon I would never reveal anything about the Augustines to Stefan. But there's something in his look that wasn't always there before. Unfortunately, I identify it as pity. I can hear him now. "So _that's _why Nora's so cold."

At that thought, I walk back into the Grill and lay one on Damon. I feel nothing when he pulls me back outside and my back hits the wall. As his hungry mouth moves across my neck, I catch sight of Stefan again. There is knowing in his green eyes, a knowing that I absolutely hate, so I cover Damon's lips with my own and rip his shirt open with my still bloody fingers.

The next morning, Stefan gives me the blouse I apparently shed in the hallway. He says nothing about the night before.

In 1976, on a dare from Damon, I get a tattoo on my hipbone. It's of a blackbird.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Damon and I slaughter the Whitmores at any opportunity. I've murdered them behind grocery stores, in discos, and museums. The oldest I've killed was 70 and the youngest is 11. We trap and kill a family of five in the woods in 1987. Damon kisses me with their blood still warm on his mouth. I feel numb as he drags his teeth across my chest and my clothes drop to the forest floor.

In the 1990s, Stefan has enough of us and throws us out of the boarding house after Damon kills the pregnant woman married to Zach, the Salvatore's only human descendant. I try to make it up to him with tickets to Bon Jovi but the damage is done. I hear him rail against us to Zach. "Ever since Nora came into the picture, Damon's been unbalanced. She encourages his bad side." Zach responds, "Because she doesn't have any good left."

I am drunk, singing karaoke in 2003 when Damon pulls me off a bar and starts explaining that the comet to save Katherine will come back in six years time. With a weird pang, I realize he must have flipped his switch back on. He is unzipping my dark dress and pulling my hair down while murmuring into the skin of my throat, "I need a Bennett witch to open the tomb and let her out. God, I bet she's hungry." I whisper, "Shut up," into his soft lips and push him onto the bed.

In 2009, after lovely years spent in places like New York and Boston, I'm back in Mystic Falls. I tell myself that I don't care but when I see Damon talk to a girl on Wickery Bridge that looks just like Stefan's saved picture of Katherine, I know that coming here will spell the end of Damon and I's comradery. I'm still lingering near the bridge hours later when the girl's car drives off of it. I could save them but when I think about losing Damon, the only person I've got, I stay where I am. In the next instant, Stefan runs past me and jumps into the water. Minutes later, he's dragging the body of the girl onto the banks of the river. I see the same desire on his face that was on Damon's. I disappear before he can see me.

Damon plans his reentry into Stefan's life craftily. I learn the Katherine lookalike is a teenage girl named Elena and that Stefan is going back to high school for her. "Pretty creepy," I say when Stefan walks into his room that night. I'm pleased that he looks a little startled. Damon only has to say, "Hello brother," for Stefan to attempt fighting him. I only groan and eat the leftover pie in Zach's fridge.

I meet the girl, Elena, when she rings the doorbell looking for Stefan. I answer it in a towel and her brown eyes widen. Stefan pushes past me, possibly afraid that I might rip her heart out and hand it to him. I shrug and say, "Nice meeting you, Elena." Damon grabs my arm to pull me into a room and I drop the towel while still in her line of sight. I laugh when I hear Stefan stumbling for an apology.

Elena doesn't last long in the dark. She figures out our secret quickly. Probably because Damon isn't stealthy in how he bites her best friend, Caroline. Or how her ex, Matt, seems to be falling over himself to do whatever I want. Damon is locked in the vervain cellar for his discretion. Stefan tries the same thing with me but he underestimates my strength. I leave the boarding house, buy my own apartment, and stop compelling the boy.

Damon turns a druggie girl for fun after a day of drinking and dancing. I just pour myself another scotch and wonder who'll have to put her down.

It's Stefan. At a high school dance. He carries the weight of this death on his already burdened shoulders. I wish I'd been there to do it for him.

Lexi, Stefan's best friend, comes into town for his birthday. I've disliked a lot of people but there might be true hate in my heart for Lexi. I don't like how she looks down her nose at me. So I helped Damon lock her on a roof back in the '70s. Is it really the worst thing that's ever happened to her? Damon asks me to help him stake her so that the Founder's Council won't blame our kills on Stefan. He doesn't need to ask me twice. Still, I have to tell myself to keep it in check when I see Stefan cry over her. I want to say a lot of things, even apologize for holding her back while Damon drove the stake into her heart, but instead, I tell him, "We just did you a favor. Get over it."

In the meantime, I help Damon in his hunt for saving Katherine. I take notes, search through old grimoires, dig up the bodies of witches in the cemetery. Stefan asks me whether I really want to do this and I make myself say that I don't _want _to do anything.

One night when I'm over at the Salvatore house, Stefan emerges from his room in a leather jacket and motorcycle boots. "That's a _good _look," I say appreciatively. He makes a face like he's now contemplating changing. He leaves to pick up Elena and Damon nudges me with his arm.

"You wanna go to the Fifties Decade Dance with me?" he asks.

"What's in it for me?" I reply.

"Possibly death and dancing. Definitely a wardrobe change. You can't go to a fifties dance in your usual getup." My "usual getup" is rather retro. I'm always in garters and 1940s-style dresses.

"Well, I missed the entire 1950s so forgive me for not knowing the style."

"Come on, I've got just the thing."

Damon dresses me in tight black pants with some sort of corset shell that pushes my boobs up to my neck and a red leather jacket. I don't ask where he got these things because I'm assuming I don't want to know. "If this is the way people really dressed back then, I'm glad I missed it," I state. He laughs and pushes me out the door.

I spend much of the night watching people dancing. I haven't danced, _really _danced, in an incredibly long time. I'm not envious of Elena when Stefan begrudgingly gives in and dances with her because that would mean that I'm feeling something. But I'm smart enough to realize that I don't feel as carelessly about it as I should.

Damon promised me death and it comes in the cafeteria when a rogue vampire targets Elena. He calls her Katherine. Stefan is slow to act and I don't see Damon. Before I can think twice about it, I snap the wood of a chair over my knee and stab it into his chest. It's been a while since I killed another vampire and frankly, it felt pretty good. Or it would, if my emotions were on. Stefan pulls Elena away and though she is pressed against his chest in shock, her elegant hands grabbing at his shirt, she looks me in the eyes and whispers, "Thank you." Stefan nods at me too, his chin resting atop her head. I hate it that that nod seems to say that maybe I'm not the monster he's always assumed I was. I shrug in response, wondering why I even bothered saving a girl who means nothing to me.

A couple of days later, I'm over at the Salvatore house to make pasta. Their kitchen is so much larger than my own and I didn't realize how much I'd miss it when I left. I make a plate and head into the living room to sit near the fire place. I twirl linguine around my fork and take a bite.

"Hey, you mind if I eat with you?" I look up at Stefan's voice. He's standing near the couch I'm sitting on, a plate of my linguine in his hand. I want to sigh.

"I guess not," I groan but it does bother me. Still, even emotionless, it's tough to be mean to Stefan. Even though he's a boring stick-in-the-mud, he's unquestionably nice. But I don't trust nice people.

"Thank you for what you did for Elena at the dance," Stefan says, sitting down across from me. He doesn't strike me as the type to risk staining the furniture. Whatever, I don't care.

"I did what needed to be done," I respond with an exasperated shrug. I take another bite of my pasta and Stefan remains silent for a while.

"Can I ask you something?"

I audibly groan, my fork clanging against my plate. Won't he just leave me alone? "I get the feeling you're going to ask me anyway."

"Why are you wasting your time with Damon?" I push the pasta around on my plate.

"I don't see why that's a concern of yours."

"I'm just asking. It's clear you don't love him and he doesn't love you. You're just filling a void in each other's lives." At this, I do sigh, long and slow. "You don't need him, you know. All these years you've been following him around as if he's all you've got." I look over at him under hooded lids. "I mean, you don't need him to protect you and he's certainly not the only man you could be with so I'm trying to figure it out."

"Why on earth does it matter?"

"Nora, you and my brother have been murdering together and sleeping together for going on fifty years, since one day you popped out of the woodwork with no explanation as to where you came from. And in all that time, I've never once found out much about you." I laugh sarcastically.

"Like you wanted to."

"Look, I'm not going to pretend to understand what you've been through but I know it was bad-"

"I don't need life advice from a man who can't even accept what he is."

"Oh, good, lash out. It means you want to feel something. I know you can do better than that."

"Stefan, let me be incredibly blunt, I don't care whether you like me, whether you _understand_ what's happened in my incredibly long and brutal life. I don't care about anything."

"You're a good liar, Nora. You're very good because you're lying to yourself more than you're lying to me. Not once in the time that I've known you have I been convinced you really have that switch flipped." I scoff.

"You don't know me, Stefan. You just said so yourself."

"I don't know where you've been or what you've done but I've seen you on and off for decades. I do know you. I know you like to cook and I know you like to sing and I know you have a tattoo of a bird on your hip. I know there's a method to who you kill. I know you saved Elena's life when you didn't have to. I know you've never told me where you met Damon because he asked you not to. And I know you tried to impress me once with those Bon Jovi tickets. None of them are things you would do if your emotions were off." Stefan sets aside his plate and stands. I notice how beautiful he is. There's something to him that Damon just doesn't have.

"Are you trying to trigger me? Because you're going to have to do a lot better than that." He smiles at me and I feel a twist in my gut. No, no, no.

"I know I've been unsympathetic to you in the past, Nora." I can hear him yelling at Damon about how I'm a bad influence, how could he drag this wild animal into his home, there wasn't a prayer for me. I was a monster and a killing machine who would stride into the house stained with blood. I'm unhinged. I'd even heard him whisper that I'm crazy. "But I don't think you've had very much kindness in your life and I think that's a shame."

"What do you want from me, Stefan? I'm not breaking down tonight."

"Oh, I'm not trying to turn your emotions back on." Yeah, sure. "I want to be your friend." All because I saved his girlfriend's life? Pathetic.

"Why?" I ask. "You don't like me. You've never liked me. You think I'm dangerous."

"That's not true."

"Oh, it is. Your exact words to Damon back in '72 were 'I don't like her.'"

He laughs. "Well, I've changed my mind. Everyone deserves a chance." He's weak, I think. I could kill him here and now and he's too trusting to care. He means nothing to me, this pathetic vampire who can't even accept his nature. All of Damon's horror stories from Augustine were nothing. He's the ripper of Monterey. He killed his own father. He feeds so hard that his victims' heads roll off their shoulders and he pitifully tries to put them back together again.

"Unfortunately, I think you really believe that. At any rate, I don't need any friends." He frowns. I think I might've actually hurt his feelings. It doesn't bother me. Not. One. Bit.

"Damon's the only person you've got on the planet and when he releases Katherine from the tomb, he'll be enthralled with her all over again. And you'll be left alone. We both know that'll destroy you."

"I doubt that. I enjoy being alone. In fact, it's my favorite thing in the world."

"Then why are you here? Why are you putting up with Damon and his schemes? Why did you protect Elena? Why haven't you killed me? You _want _friends, Nora, even if you're bad at making them. I'm offering you an opportunity that spares your pride."

"Stop being nice to me." It is not a request, it's a demand.

"Why? Because you're not used to it?"

"Leave me alone, Stefan. I don't take kindly to people feeling sorry for me. I can take care of myself and I'm doing great! It was my choice to flip the switch and it's the best decision I've ever made!" I am standing now, pointing at him.

"What made you do it, huh? What was so terrible that you couldn't face it? Grief? Because I've got to tell you, Nora, we've all been there." I can tell by the look on his face that he's probably got it figured out.

"It doesn't matter why I did it, what matters is that I'm better now." He moves so close to me that I can almost touch him.

"How are you better? You're lonely but you're scared so you push away everyone but Damon, your male twin." He's so calm about it all, as though I'm doing exactly what he wants. I moan, irritated.

"Fine," I declare.

"What?" Stefan asks, as though this is the most shocking thing that has ever happened to him.

"I said okay. Try and be my friend. It won't be easy." He smiles again, a genuine smile now. I was going to ask who put him up to this but it's obvious this was all his idea.

"Oh, I'm counting on it." He sits down on the couch and acts like he's waiting for me to do the same.

"We have to start right now?" I question.

"Why not? You need to leave and prove to yourself that you really have your switch turned off?" I grit my teeth and sit down at the farthest end of the couch from him.

"Well, if this is your idea of friendship, it's just as vanilla as I feared it would be."

He laughs and it's a rather nice sound. "We haven't even played Twenty Questions yet and you're already saying it's boring."

"Twenty Questions _is_ boring. There are no stakes. It's the golf of sleepover games."

"Okay, what about truth or dare?" I freeze for a moment, things twirling over and over in my mind while Stefan observes me. Why is he doing this? Why is he pushing the right buttons?

"I don't want to play that either."

"Oh, you're scared I'll dare you to give up garters and Mary Janes for a week?" I won't back down from a challenge.

"I'm not scared of anything. Give it your best shot."

"Truth or dare?" Stefan smiles again and dare I say, there's an air of mischief to it.

"Truth."

"Okay, how about a tough one?" For a second, I actually fear what he's going to ask me. Or I would have, if I could feel anything. "What's your favorite color?"

I scoff again. "Red. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Did you use those Bon Jovi tickets I scored for you?"

"Yes, I took Lexi. It was nice, thanks. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"What's your favorite food?"

"Anything diner."

"Not good enough. I need specifics," Stefan retorts. I laugh only a tiny bit in response.

"I like milkshakes and fries and cheeseburgers. I just like diner food. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Do you really keep a diary?" I ask with a sly grin.

"I call it a _journal _and yes, I do. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Favorite movie? And no musicals." I groan because that toughens it significantly.

"Pillow Talk."

"Pillow Talk!" Stefan exclaims. "I figured you for a Rock Hudson fan."

"Yeah, too bad he was gay," I reply. "Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Did you really dance like you did with Elena in the fifties? Sockhop and all that?" He laughs.

"Yes. I take it you didn't." I shake my head. He doesn't know but I missed the entire decade of the 1950s. "You were probably more of a greaser, right? Sandy at the end of Grease?"

I don't look at him but I mutter, "Sure."

"The forties were more your style, right? A little bit slower, classier?" I cut my eyes at him. "It's just an assumption… based on the way you dress. Anyway, truth or dare?"

I take a deep breath and respond, "Dare." He grins.

"I knew you'd make it interesting. Well, based on what we were just talking about, I dare you to dance with me."

"No," I quickly respond.

"A big bad vampire like you scared of dancing with a weak one like me? Worried you might _feel _something?" I roll my eyes.

"Of course not, you idiot. You've got a girlfriend, isn't that a little untoward?"

"Oh, come on, Nora. I saw the way you were looking at the dance floor the other night. You're itching to dance. And who better to dance with than a guy who's emotionally unavailable to you?"

"Well, you did dare me." He offers me his hand and I get up off the couch.

"You want me to twirl you around like I did Elena?"

"If you want to make more of a fool of yourself, sure."

"Then we'll go old school." He walks away from me and he fiddles with a stereo.

"What are you doing?" There's a shade of nervousness to my voice, which isn't possible because I supposedly can't feel anything.

"I'm picking a song, unless you want to sing one." He turns back and sees the grimace on my face. "I didn't think so. You like Peggy Lee, don't you?"

"Doesn't everyone?" Was he going to be so cliché as to pick Fever?

"She's covering a pretty old song here but I've always liked it."

I don't expect it to catch me off-guard but it does. The song he plays is one I haven't heard in many years. I take a step back, almost stumble.

"You don't like Bye Bye Blackbird?" Stefan questions, walking back over towards me. I'm halfway to fleeing, actually running out of the room and out of the house.

"Yes, I do like it." He smiles again, an absolutely innocent grin. "But you knew that, didn't you?" He gives me a look which seems to say maybe-maybe-not.

He takes my hand and I place my other on his shoulder. "We're going to have to get closer," he tells me, pressing a hand against my lower back and pulling me forward. Our chests touch and my grip on his hand tightens. I take a deep breath but it doesn't calm me down and Stefan only smirks, a remarkably handsome look for something so nefarious.

"I thought you hated to dance," I say through my teeth.

"I do," he replies lowly. I feel his breath on my ear.

"Then let me go and I'll forget this ever happened." He gives me a laugh and shifts so that I'm closer to him still. I can't see him now, I can only feel how he's bent towards me, his cheek brushing against my hair.

"Still making threats when you're the one who agreed to a dare." My fingers tighten their grip on his shoulder but I let him dance with me. I try to tune out the song and where I am and what I'm doing but it's so hard when my skin is against his, when we're chest to chest, when I'm forced to remember a dream I had over fifty years ago.

"Truth or dare, Stefan?" I whisper.

"Truth," he murmurs.

"Why are you doing this? I'm not some high school girl who's just going to open her heart to you because you're dark and sensitive." I feel him smile.

"I'm doing this because I think you deserve a shot. You're more than some lone wolf and you should act like it. I think that you've spent so much time trying to convince yourself that caring for anyone else is a weakness that you might actually believe it. And you deserve a chance to see that that's not the case."

"And just who should I care for, Stefan? Certainly not Damon."

"No, not Damon," he agrees. And not you either. Not you. "Who you take an interest in is up to you. But don't lie and say that you've never cared about anybody but yourself. I saw the way you talked to that girl all those years ago. Even the way you killed her had an air of… emotion."

Stefan links our fingers and dips me as the song ends. Something deep within me cracks and he pulls me back up. My grip tightens again and he drops my hand to wrap me in his arms. I don't cry but shamefully, I do tremble. I bury my face in his neck and pretend he's someone else but that doesn't last long. I will remember this moment forever and that it was Stefan who did it.

"I'm sorry about Lexi," I mutter.

"I'm sorry too," he whispers in my ear. "I'm sorry for everything you've been through."

Flipping the switch back on isn't quite as bad as I thought it would be, particularly because I didn't do much to feel guilty about while it was off. I grimace at myself when I think about sleeping with Damon but that's the worst of it. Killing innocent people is par for the course where I'm concerned but having sex with a man that left me to burn is fairly out of character.

I'm forced to stand corrected on what the worst part is when I stand outside the tomb where Katherine is supposedly imprisoned. I take my place between two Bennett witches, planning to turn on Damon when the time comes. Stefan doesn't want Katherine released and I've done what I can to help him and Elena thwart Damon's plan. Flipping my switch turned back on a lot of resentment for Damon over what happened to me and I was forced to wonder why exactly I was helping him in the first place.

But when Stefan steps over the spelled threshold to fetch Damon, I reach out to pull him back. No, I think, as I realize that I don't want Stefan to be trapped.

Worse than that, is the sinking feeling I get in my stomach when I hear that the newly freed tomb vampires have taken Stefan hostage. When Damon and I go to save him, the vampires torture him in front of us and I feel sick when I hear him scream. I am suddenly thankful that Dr. Whitmore only ever took us one at a time. Damon has to drag me away from the house.

We enlist the new history teacher/vampire hunter to help us and Elena tags along. She's supposed to wait in the car while I save Stefan and the boys take care of the tomb vampires and the human owner of the house. I open the cellar up and dash in the moment that I feel like I can.

I figured Stefan's injuries would have healed like mine used to but he never drinks human blood, not even the small amount I used to get daily back in Augustine. He looks at me as if he's drugged and I pull him down. "All right, no passing out, okay?" I say. "I'm going to get you to the car but you've got to work with me." I think he nods.

I drape his arm around me and somehow manage to get him across the yard. The thought doesn't even cross my mind that one of the tomb vampires may have escaped Alaric and Damon's notice. I'm on the ground before I know what's hit me and a stake is through my ribcage. I yell out, hoping that Stefan has enough energy to escape or that Damon hears that I'm about to die. Neither happens. Stefan only weakly whispers, "Nora."

The vampire moves onto Stefan, who appears lifeless on the ground. It is Elena who saves us both. She pulls the stake from my stomach and sends it into the heart of the tomb vamp. I scramble over to her and Stefan. "He needs blood," I realize.

"No," he whispers. I'm not sure whether he thinks I'm enough to protect him or whether he's just truly terrified of becoming the ripper again.

"Here," Elena says, cutting her palm and holding it up to him. He moves away from her and gives me an imploring look. I think about giving him my blood to spare him the ripper tendencies but giving him my blood means blood-sharing… and blood-sharing is too personal for me. I know this situation is equivalent to a building burning down around me but I can't make myself do it. So Elena prevails and with tears in his eyes, Stefan takes her blood.

I have never felt more like a coward.

Bringing Stefan down from that high requires trickery and lots of vervain. When I watch Elena stick the needle into his back, I'm not positive I want her to do it.

As I drag him into the vervain cellar, Elena says, "You care about Stefan too, don't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I respond, locking him in.

I don't like admitting to myself just how much I admire Stefan but I know I can't deny that I was worried he was dying when I tried to save him from the tomb vampires or that I feel jealousy when I see him look at Elena. I'm ashamed that I want him because a fifty year grieving period doesn't seem long enough. But I remind myself that Enzo is dead and that nothing will ever happen between Stefan and I anyway. Stefan is too good for me, just like Enzo was, and I have no idea how to handle feelings like this when there's the possibility that I could actually act on them.

But for every time I try to stop thinking of Stefan that way, something pops into my head. He's remarkably kind and worrisome. He hates to dance but sometimes, he'll dance with me anyway. He likes to hear me sing but won't admit it. He'll eat everything I cook and say it's great, even if it isn't. And worst of all, he went out of his way to make me flip my switch back. I think of that all the time.

I sit back and watch as Katherine waltzes back into town, taunting the Salvatore brothers and Elena equally. I don't bat an eyelash when she turns Caroline or slices the fingers off Elena's uncle John. In fact, I quite like this elusive woman I've heard about for the past fifty years. I see something of myself in her.

I especially enjoy watching the relationship between Elena and Stefan disintegrate. Damon and I stand on the sidelines waiting for it to officially end so that we can finally make a move. Damon compelled Elena without her vervain necklace on and told her he loves her. I can't exactly do that with Stefan and damn it, I want to say it so that I can move on. Part of me knows nothing could happen anyway. Stefan may tolerate me now but I doubt he'll ever be able to look on me with love.

"It's been over fifty years," Damon says when Alaric stabs the Original vampire, Elijah, in the back through a dining room chair. "I think you can admit you want Stefan without feeling guilty."

"Um, a little help here?" Alaric interrupts. I sigh and pull Elijah's body downstairs.

When Klaus comes and leaves town, he takes Stefan with him. "Pathetic," I whisper while eating a piece of pizza at Elena's birthday party. "You don't want Stefan. You don't like Stefan. You're not worried about Stefan. He's just self-righteous and irritating and weak. He's so weak."

But I pick up my phone when it rings that night. He never says a word but I know it's Stefan on the other end of the line.

Klaus compels him to turn it off. I'm forced to admit that there's something of me in Klaus too, even as I try to get through to Stefan. I don't know what makes him turn it back on but I like to think it's something I did.

Alaric dies after being messed with by the Original witch, Esther. I kill her when her guard is down for him. Ric was third and last on my list of those I care about, after a man that's been dead since 1968 and Stefan.

Rebekah, the Original sister, drowns Elena but she awakens as a vampire. Once turned, she is unable to deny her feelings for Damon and Stefan cannot ignore it. He calls me when they break up, saying he needs a place to stay. I wonder if he knows what he's doing but I tell him to come over anyway.

Once here, he sits across from me on the couch. "I'm sorry about you and Elena," I state, trying to smooth the folds out of my floral dress. I'm not sorry and I'm sure he knows it.

"Well, it's been a long time coming," he replies, cutting his eyes at me.

"Damon wasn't your only issue?"

"Yes, there was more than Damon." He looks at me earnestly. "Elena felt bad about it but she's been pushing those feelings aside for a long time now and I have to admit that I've done the same thing."

"Really?" I ask, even as I know what he's getting at. Over the past few decades, I've become excellent at seducing men in order to kill them, so why is this making me nervous?

"Yes," he replies. I don't want him to tell me what he's thinking, even though I've coveted him for years. The idea of saying it aloud cements it in far too permanent a way.

"I didn't see you at the Miss Mystic pageant today. That's twice now you haven't shown. I bet Caroline was furious."

"She was too busy with Klaus to notice my absence. I'm betting you're the only one who was wondering where I was."

"Well, when the dances started, some other girl almost got stood up. It was hard to forget last year, when you dodged the dance to dine on one of Elena's competitors." He laughs and I believe I can handle this. Talking like friends is something I can do.

"I guess I learned that horrible dance for nothing."

"Horrible?" I question. "I quite like it. The no-touching, the anticipation. It's like how I used to dance."

"Really? Show me how you used to dance back in the _old _days."

I laugh in mock pain. "Didn't anyone ever teach you how to respect your elders?" He gives me a grin that has far too much wolf in it to ever be called sheepish.

He stands before me and I push my coffee table out of the way. He raises a hand and I do the same. Our palms have to stay close but never touch.

"This is quite scandalous for a lady of your stature, Nora," Stefan says. "Shouldn't you be wearing gloves?"

"I should also be about to pass out from the corset that's cracking my ribs."

"Oh, they weren't all bad." When I imagine him undoing the laces, I decide that I agree.

Stefan and I walk in a circle then switch hands. He then frames his hands on my waist and says, "Dancing is easier for me to bear if there's music involved." He raises his eyebrows.

"I am not singing Wanted Dead or Alive while we're dancing a minuet." He laughs.

"You're no fun," he responds.

I smirk. "I do have _some _standards, believe it or not."

"I would have requested one of those crooner songs you're so fond of anyway." He links our fingers and gives me an almost troublesome look. "I want to tell you something."

I shake my head. "I don't think you should."

"Oh," he scoffs sarcastically, "am I making the indomitable Nora nervous?" I grimace at him. "I don't want you to run," he admits, his hand ruffling the fabric at my waist.

"You think I would run from you?" I genuinely ask.

"I do, because I think you're scared of really feeling something for someone else and I don't know why. I'm guessing you've been hurt and you've known loss." Boy, has he got that right. "I can't imagine how you've suffered. Look, Nora, I know there's still so much about you that I don't understand-"

"No, it sounds like you know it all," I reply.

"Come on, just hear me out. You don't have to ever do anything about it, if that's what you want." I can tell it's paining him to struggle with this so I just nod. "I've been horrible to you because I didn't understand how you worked. I didn't like you with Damon. I didn't like you emotionless and I've spent a lot of time telling myself that I don't like you now. But I do. I like you and your siren voice and your heartbroken eyes. I like that you pretend to be cold. I like that you're an absolute mystery to me. I want to know why you resent Damon and why you put up with him for so long. I want to know the name of the man that you killed that girl for in 1975."

"I can't-"

"It's okay," he responds and I immediately know that it is. He's not going to pressure me. He just genuinely wants to know. "I know you probably think I'm some pathetic sap for noticing and saying all that to you." He drops my hand to rub at the back of his neck sheepishly. I shake my head. "You've done a lot for me over the years, Nora, that I've never thanked you for. You've saved my life. You brought me back when I flipped my switch. I know that I've only ever experienced love in incredibly messed up ways and from what Damon says, that's also true for you." I am going to gut Damon for talking about me. "I understand that I don't really know you as well as you know me. I only know that you have a lovely voice, you shut people out, and you have a gift for artfully killing anyone who gets in your way. But I also know that I love you."

Damn.

"I don't think you love me," I say with a cross of my arms.

"Unfortunately, I think I do."

I grin and ask, "How am I supposed to top your speech?"

He shrugs. "I don't know but you should try."

"Well, you know, Stefan, you are rigid and judgmental. I have to look over my shoulder to make sure you're keeping up. I have to watch what you eat so I know whether my head's going to roll. You pestered me into flipping my switch and now I'm burdened with really annoying feelings. I hate that you're understanding and that you always do the right thing. I hate that you're so much better than I am. And I really hate myself for it but I love you."

When his lips meet mine, it is electric. When he trails kisses along my jawline, I think that the last time I was this happy, I was still in Augustine. He asks if I want to take it slow but I'm afraid if I say yes that I will never have this opportunity again. In response to the shake of my head, he lets my dress fall around my feet and runs his mouth along my collarbone.

Stefan is soft and sweet and even in the midst of his arms, I know I cannot keep him long. When he puts his mouth to the blackbird on my hip and traces it with his fingers, I want to cut him loose already. Why should I put him through this, when I am such damaged goods? He deserves someone that can give him their all and even though I desire him, I'm not sure that's me. But selfish as I am, I let myself have Stefan, if only for a little while longer.

He tries to hide how he still looks at Elena but I can't say it truly bothers me. I knew the moment we heard about her sire bond to Damon that everything would change. I tag along on the hunt for the cure, all the while secretly worried that Stefan might ask me to take it. When there is only one dose, I feel immense relief. I was a frail and naïve girl when I was human and I have no desire to ever return to that state.

Bonnie brings the veil down to defeat Silas and the only dead person of interest that I talk to is Alaric. I sadly admit to myself that I'd been looking forward to this in the hopes of seeing Enzo but he never shows. I hope that means that he's happy or at peace, not that he's petulantly avoiding me because I've tried to move on with my life. I haven't really moved on though. Otherwise I would be far more upset at Stefan's distress over Elena.

Stefan asks me to go with him to Oregon once Silas is gone and I know that this is yet another opportunity I could sabotage. This time I tell him no. There are things I need to figure out and he agrees. He doesn't leave on a bad note exactly, just a very disappointed one.

When he drives off, Damon stands at my side. "You should have gone with him."

"No," I reply. "I abhor the word but there was a lot of _baggage._ And I'd rather not talk about it anymore."

"Good. I don't want to talk about it either. I wanted to ask whether you're in the mood to kill some Whitmores."

"Oh, how did you know?" I respond with a smirk.

**Wow, this chapter is super long but I had so much fun writing it! Nora's been up to a lot! I think it's interesting to see what Nora does when she's not solely focused on not dying. I also really wanted to see her with someone else in the in-between and she and Stefan just clicked for me. I didn't want to go for someone as obvious as Damon, who she clearly would have clung to, but I doubt she would have truly cared for him (and I imagine it's pretty hard **_**not **_**to be in love with Stefan). I think the relationship between Stefan and Nora over the decades was interesting because they would have been pretty antagonistic and then gradually grew into whatever they are now (friends, exs, karaoke buddies?). Stefan's rather soft, which is not only a huge contrast with Nora but with Enzo once he comes back in. She and Stefan just weirdly enough hit it off for me when I started writing this chapter and I think their past could bring something interesting into the story as it moves forward. But let me know what you think!**


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